“Our most formidable enemy is our inertia, and the biggest challenge comes from within ourselves. The new challenges facing China’s economic development are also new opportunities for us… With such GDP growth and at this stage of development, expanding overseas direct investment (ODI) is an inevitable development path,” says Vice President and Dean of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Professor of Accounting, Ding Yuan. He was recently sharing his views, with the Economic Observer, on the driving forces behind CEIBS’ development and today’s macroeconomic trends.

The Financial Times’ words of the year for 2018 include “toxic” and “techlash”. While toxic brings to mind the toxic masculinity opposed by the #MeToo movement, political discourses suffused with a toxic atmosphere, and the worsening global environment, in which thousands of children have died as a result of toxins in the air, techlash vividly portrays the growing public animosity towards large Silicon Valley technology companies and their Chinese equivalents. These two words are not positive, and to some extent, they reflect a frustrating trend. Although these words may not paint a complete picture of the year 2018, we are definitely living in a time of growing conflicts, clashes, and uncertainties.