David Shambaugh's China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation is a scholarly account that gives an idea of what's going on in China's many think tanks.

One of the things that seems to be emphasized in what I've read is how difficult it is for Westerners to understand what is going on inside the Party, but the reviews of that sound interesting (especially the talk http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2008/0415_china/20080415_china.pdf ), so I'll put it on my list.