In a repeated-game-context, the best strategy is to always present a credible threat to your opponent so he will quickly understand it is better to pay you togoaway than to engage in protracted battle.
National competitiveness is a slippery and sometimes incoherent idea, but a coherent version is to take it to mean a population with the human capital to adapt when old jobs goaway, and shift quickly out of dying industries and into growing ones.