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09:01 GMT
LONDON, Dec 6 (KUNA) -- The coming decade could witness "the decline of the West" if Britain and other western powers fail to respond to the rise of Asian economies like China, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown warned Monday.
Brown said that the harsh public spending cuts being imposed in the UK and elsewhere could rob western governments of the firepower they need to develop the skills and technology needed to win business in China and India.
He warned that the deficit-slashing policies being pursued by the coalition Government will be viewed by later generations as one of the "great misjudgments of history".
Brown was speaking to The Guardian newspaper today ahead of the publication of his book "Beyond The Crash, looking at the global financial crisis of the last few years and the policy response needed in the years to come".
The book calls for a global compact between the G20 nations - which include both the historical powers of Europe and North America and the rising economic giants in Asia and South America - to spur growth and create 30-50 million jobs worldwide.
He said "On current trends, Europe and America face high unemployment for a decade and worsening youth unemployment to come.
"If the story of the coming decade is not to become 'the decline of the west', then Europe and America have to change tack, rise to the biggest challenge of all - restructuring the world economy - and equip themselves to benefit from the next great global challenge - the dramatic rise in the consumer spending power of Asia." Despite winning accolades for persuading world leading to join a co-ordinated response to the financial crash at the G20 summits in London and Pittsburgh in 2009, Brown has come under relentless attack from the coalition Government here, who blame him for allowing Britain's state deficit to swell to record levels.
He today acknowledged his views were no longer fashionable, but compared the coalition's package of deep spending cuts to the fiscal retrenchment which tipped the world into lengthy depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
"As the 1930s showed, the economic orthodoxies for which people are feted today will quickly come to be seen as the great misjudgments of history," he said.
Brown has stayed largely out of the spotlight since stepping down as prime minister after the May election, rarely spotted in Parliament and emerging from his Fife home in Scotland only to give his backing to favoured campaigns on issues like global poverty.
In another interview published last Saturday, he said he had no interest in writing an instant memoir like his New Labour sparring partners Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, whose books he said he had not read.
"I am not interested in gossip. I am not saying 'never' but I am better concentrating on the things I am doing," he said. (end) he.asa KUNA 061201 Dec 10NNNN