You'd expect to see headlines like this - 'Launch of New Apple iPhone Causes Riots - when consumers beat down doors and trample each other, yet these riots were in China, among workers at Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple and other U.S. companies.

Manufactured exports - a bright spot of the U.S. economy in recent years - are set to surge. Combined with jobs created as a result of reshoring, higher U.S. exports could add 2.5 million to 5 million jobs by the end of the decade, as manufacturers shift production from leading European countries and Japan to take advantage of substantially lower costs in the U.S., according to new research by The Boston Consulting Group.

The era of easy growth for Chinese companies is coming to a close. Sales growth is slowing, while margins and profitability are under pressure. To reach the next level, Chinese companies need first to overcome a more challenging economy at home, where the days of relying on low labor costs, price competition, and a giant domestic market to fuel growth are over.

Ever since Frederick Taylor's early writing on industrial efficiency - followed by the work of Peter Drucker, Alfred Chandler, and others - the modern Western corporation has been managed according to a tightly defined set of rules and norms. A clear corporate strategy calls for earning at least the cost of capital, growing at a higher rate than the overall market, and managing the portfolio to a "logic" - periodically pruning poorly performing businesses. And with Wall Street analysts ready to applaud CEOs for making their numbers or pulverize them for a one-cent per share miss, there is often little opportunity to change course.

Six months after the Civil Aviation Administration of China gave CDI Cargo Airlines the green light to launch operations, the carrier has commenced B737-300 service from its Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport hub to Changchun, via Qingdao. And although Asian cargo has been rather sluggish lately, CDI Cargo's Alex Zhang feels that the carrier is poised for success.