West’s Values Run Into Resistance

LONDON — The West is suddenly suffused with self- doubt.

Centuries of superiority and global influence appeared to reach a new summit with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the countries, values and civilization of the West appeared to have won the dark, difficult battle with Communism.

That victory seemed especially sweet after the turn of China toward capitalism, which many thought presaged a slow evolution to middle- class demands for individual rights and transparent justice — toward a form of democracy. But is the embrace of Western values inevitable? Are Western values, essentially Judeo- Christian ones, truly universal?

The rise of authoritarian capitalism has been a blow to assumptions, made popular by Francis Fukuyama, that liberal democracy has proved to be the most reliable and lasting political system.

With the collapse of Communism, “what we may be witnessing,” Mr. Fukuyama wrote hopefully in 1989, “is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

But couple the tightening of Chinese authoritarianism with Russia’s turn toward revanchism and dictatorship, then add the rise of radical Islam, and the victory of Western liberalism can seem hollow, its values under threat even in its own societies.

The recent flood of migrants and Syrian asylum seekers were welcomed in much of Europe, especially Germany and Austria. But it also prompted new anxieties about the growing influence of Islam, and radical Islamists, in Europe.

Many of the emerging powerhouses of globalization, like Brazil, are interested in democracy and the rule of law, but not in the West’s preaching, which they regard as