'Just in case you thought there was no internal debate about China's future, here is evidence to the contrary.' --- Chris Patten

Very few things that happen in our lifetime will be remembered after we are dead. But China's rise is different: like the rise and fall of Rome or the Soviet Empire, its after-effects will echo down the generations to come.

So why is it that we know almost nothing about the thinkers in China who are shaping their country's future? What kind of country are they dreaming of? How do they see their influence in the world? We might know that half of the world's clothes and footwear have a 'Made in China' label and that our economies are inextricably linked with China's --- but what do we know about China's experiments with democracy; about its anti-globalisation movement; about its plans to deal with America as its own influence grows across the globe?

Mark Leonard provides a fascinating and unexpected perspective on the debates raging within Chinese society today and shows us just how radically China's rise will change the nature of our world.

Mark Leonard is Executive Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank with offices in Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Sofia and Warsaw. Previously he worked at the Centre for European Reform and was founding director of the Foreign Policy Centre. He has spent time in Washington as a Transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and in Beijing as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His first book, Why Europe Will run the 21st Century, has been translated into 18 languages. Mark's essays and articles have appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic including The Economist, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sun, Liberation, Die Welt and the Wall Street Journal.