Outlining the roadmap for facing the competition, the US President said America should not shy away from the challenge and remain the leader in research and development and higher education sector.
"America should not be afraid of competition, we ought to welcome it, and continue to be the leader. We shouldn't lose our nerve. We shouldn't see the future and fear the future; we ought to welcome the future", Bush said in a speech at Tuskegee University in Albama.
Singling out Chinese President Hu Jintao's US visit and his recent Indian trip, Bush said, "India and China are emerging nations. They are growing rapidly and they provide competition for jobs and natural resources."
"I'm welcoming President Hu Jintao of China to the South Lawn of the White House. Last month, I travelled to India to set the stage for new relations with that important country."
Noting that in the globalised era "people are hiring people with skill sets", Bush cautioned the Americans, "if our folks don't have the skill sets, those jobs are going to go somewhere else."
"So here's the problem we face. The problem is this: Can we compete? Are we going to be a nation in which we can compete in a globalized world?," he said.
Comparing his early days and the present, Bush said "when I was growing up, where competition might have been around, but it didn't really nearly affect the lives of our citizens as much as it does today."
"And there are several ways to look at the world in which we live. We can say, we understand the world the way it is and we're confident in our capacity to shape the future; or we don't like the way the world is and we're going to withdraw and retreat," he said.
The President said withdrawing and retreating was "not the right thing to do, in my judgment. America has always been able to compete". In this era of globalisation, Bush said, a move by one country has its effect on other countries.
"I'll give you an example of the effects of globalisation. When India buys more fossil fuels, it causes the price of crude oil to go up, which causes our price of gasoline to go up," the US President said.
