Endymion Porter Wilkinson (born 15 May 1941) is a British sinologist and diplomat who served as the European Union Ambassador to China and Mongolia from 1994 to 2001.

He did not know, he recalled many years later, what to tell his graduate students about the Zhou or Shang dynasties, about which he felt his knowledge would about "fill an eye dropper."

While on academic study leave in 1974, Wilkinson was asked by the European Commission to find the building and recruit the local staff for the EU's permanent diplomatic delegation to Japan.

Shortly thereafter, he quit academe, joined the commission's External Relations Directorate General and was posted to Tokyo as First Secretary (Economic) during the intensification of EU-Japan trade frictions (1974–1979).

The book was well received, not only in Japan, but also in Europe and America: "This wry history of how each side has caricatured the other serves as an introduction to the topic which dominates relations today: trade.

[6] The editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jürgen Eicke suggested the book was "Essential for everyone in economic circles who has any contact with Japan.

"[8] James Fallows, writing in the New York Review of Books, skipped the economic arguments and while praising Wilkinson's discussion of Japanese and Western images of each other, objected that his approach "pushes him toward the bizarre position of implying that the more often foreigners have observed a certain trait about Japan, the more likely it is to be false, not true.

"[9] In 1975, Wilkinson was sent by the European Commission to Beijing to make preparations for and participate in the talks between Christopher Soames and Zhou Enlai leading to the establishment of EU-China diplomatic relations.

Among his activities at this time was the launch of a $100 million program to provide loans to 170,000 Vietnamese boat people refugees to enable them to start businesses on returning to Vietnam.

Wilkinson also served as the deputy head under Pascal Lamy of the European Commission negotiating team for China's entry into the World Trade Organization.