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West caused crisis, says China's Wen
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor2 Feb 2009
GORDON BROWN suffered embarrassment today as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao blamed the world's economic crisis on Western countries which ran up huge deficits overspending and borrowing.
Speaking alongside the Prime Minister on a visit to London, Mr Wen said that "the main cause" of the downturn was those nations which had racked up dual trade and fiscal deficits.
He also suggested the West should take responsibility for failing to regulate its bankers and lambasted those financiers who had "pursued profit in a blind way without effective regulation".
"There has been excessive leverage to gain huge profit," he said.
In remarks sure to be seized on by the Tories, the Chinese PM said Western countries with "imbalance in their economic structure" caused the global crisis.
Although he was clearly referring to the US, his comments will also be seen as including the UK. The world is now having to cope with the "disaster" caused by the Western bubble being burst, Mr Wen added.
"The financial crisis has given us some hard lessons."
Mr Wen stressed that he would put his own country first, pointing out "we need to take care of China", but offered to do what he could to stabilise the world economy through new tougher international rules.
Earlier, shadow chancellor Kenneth Clarke, in his first speech since taking over his new post, attacked Mr Brown for overseeing an unsustainable boom and failing to spot its dangers.
"We have gone in for a mad bubble. Gordon took pride in the fact that he had created an extraordinary bubble, based on the fact that the City of London was so unregulated," Mr Clarke said.
He said Britain had failed to build a "balanced economy".
