Let me end with a final testimony, from an activist friend whose political purpose in life is to render her own bullshit job unnecessary, and one of her fellow activists. Leslie is a Benefits Advisor in the United Kingdom, that is, she works for an NGO whose purpose is to guide citizens through the elaborate obstacle course successive governments have set up to make it as difficult as possible for those out of work, or otherwise in material need, to get access to the money the government claims it has set apart for them. Here is the testimony she sent in:

Leslie: My job shouldn’t be necessary, but it is, because of the whole long train of bullshit jobs invented to keep people who need money from having it. As if claiming any kind of benefit were not Kafkaesque, intrusive and humiliating enough, they also make it incredibly complicated. Even when someone is entitled to something, the process of applying is so complex most need help to understand the questions and their own rights.

Leslie has had to deal for years with the insanity that ensues when one tries to reduce human caring to a format that can be recognized by computers—let alone computers designed to keep caring precisely limited. As a result she ends up in much the same position as Tania in chapter 2, who had to spend hours rewriting job applicants’ CVs and coaching them on which keywords to use to “make it past the computer”:

Leslie: There are now certain words which have to be used on the forms, I call it the catechism, which if not used can result in a failed claim—but these are only known by those like myself who have had training and access to the handbooks. And even then, especially for disability claims, the claimant often ends up having to fight through to a tribunal to get their entitlement recognized. I do get a little thrill every time we win through for someone. But this doesn’t make up for the anger I feel about the colossal waste of everyone’s time this is. For the claimant, for me, for the various bods at the DWP [Department of Works and Pensions] who deal with the claim, for the judges at the tribunals, the experts called in to support either side. Isn’t there something more constructive we could all be doing, like, I don’t know, installing solar panels or gardening? I also often wonder about whoever made up these rules. How much did they get paid for it? How long did it take them? How many people were involved? To their minds I guess they were ensuring that the noneligible don’t get money . . . And then I think of visiting aliens laughing at us, humans inventing rules to prevent other humans from getting access to tokens of a human concept, money—which is by its nature not scarce.

[...]

Leslie told me of studies that demonstrate that any system of means testing, no matter how it’s framed, will necessarily mean at least 20 percent of those who legitimately qualify for benefits give up and don’t apply. That’s almost certainly more than the number of “cheats” who might be detected by the rules—in fact, even counting those who are honestly mistaken the number still only comes to 1.6 percent. The 20 percent figure would apply even if no one actually was formally denied benefits at all. But of course the rules are designed to deny as many claimants as can plausibly be denied: between sanctions and capricious applications of the rules, we’ve gotten to the point now where 60 percent of those eligible for unemployment benefits in the United Kingdom don’t get them. In other words, everyone she describes, the entire archipelago that starts with the bureaucrats who write the rules, and includes the DWP, enforcement tribunals, advocates, and employees who work for the funding bodies that process applications for the NGOs that employ those advocates, all of them, are part of a single vast apparatus that exists to maintain the illusion that people are naturally lazy and don’t really want to work—and therefore, that even if society does have a responsibility to ensure they don’t literally starve to death, it is necessary to make the process of providing them with the means of continued existence as confusing, time-consuming, and humiliating as possible.

ㅁ (called 미음 mi-eum) is the fifth letter in the Korean alphabet. It's pronounced like an m.

His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate's ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America's successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''

''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''

One only wonders what future historians will say. If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn't matter, because the vacuum it was supposed to fill had already been filled, only the Clinton team couldn't see it. They will say that the forces of globalization integrating Europe, coupled with the new arms control agreements, proved to be so powerful that Russia, despite NATO expansion, moved ahead with democratization and Westernization, and was gradually drawn into a loosely unified Europe. If we are unlucky they will say, as Mr. Kennan predicts, that NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia's border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe.

But there is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 1990's. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 -- the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which had the capability, imperial intentions and ideology to truly threaten the entire free world. Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet Empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the U.S.

And what was America's response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia's borders.

Yes, tell your children, and your children's children, that you lived in the age of Bill Clinton and William Cohen, the age of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, the age of Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman, and you too were present at the creation of the post-cold-war order, when these foreign policy Titans put their heads together and produced . . . a mouse.

We are in the age of midgets. The only good news is that we got here in one piece because there was another age -- one of great statesmen who had both imagination and courage.

As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ''This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.''

China and Japan have stepped up engagement in recent months, but analysts say the trajectory of relations will largely come down to Tokyo’s political situation and its ties with the incoming Donald Trump administration.

Last week, when Takeshi Iwaya made his first visit to China as Japanese foreign minister, the two sides agreed to increase exchanges, to make it easier for Chinese to visit Japan, and to restart dialogue on security and diplomacy as well as talks on Japanese beef and milled rice imports.

It followed a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Peru last month, when they agreed to work on “constructive and stable” ties, and talks between Ishiba and Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Asean summit in Laos in October.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is also said to be planning a Japan trip in February for an economic dialogue last held in 2019 and could extend an invitation for Ishiba to visit China, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported, citing diplomatic sources.

Ishiba told Japanese media over the weekend that frequent engagement was needed to build trust between the two nations.

While security remains a stumbling block, analysts say Tokyo’s recent engagement with Beijing is a response to uncertainty over Washington’s commitment to allies and the potential harm to Japanese interests when Trump returns to the White House next month.

“Ishiba will maintain some level of outreach to Beijing as a hedge against otherwise one-sided, burdensome demands from Washington,” said Walter Hatch, a professor of government at Colby College in Maine and an Asian politics expert.

Japan has depended on the US for security under a defence pact established after World War II – a commitment Trump questioned during his first term, when he called for Tokyo to pay more for US troops stationed on Japanese soil. Trump is expected to again apply pressure on that front and has also threatened to impose higher tariffs on imports from China and other countries.

“With ‘America first’ Trumpism on the rise in Washington, both Tokyo and Beijing have a strong interest in building better ties to protect against unilateralism,” Hatch said.

Meanwhile Ishiba wants to “rebalance Japan’s relations with the world’s two superpowers, asserting a bit more autonomy in the otherwise highly subordinate alliance with the US”.

“With Trump about to take office, Ishiba wants to signal that Tokyo will not be bullied into deals with Washington that would undermine Japanese interests,” Hatch said.

“He wants the president-elect to know that Japan has other options.”

But it will involve mending fences with Beijing. Relations between the Asian neighbours have been strained in recent years over Japan’s wartime aggression, their territorial disputes in the East China Sea, and the issue of Taiwan.

At the same time, Japan has moved closer to the US amid the escalating rivalry between Beijing and Washington and concerns over China’s growing military might – and its activities close to Japan.

According to Zhang Yilun, a research associate at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), Beijing has an opportunity to improve relations with both Tokyo and Seoul.

Japan, South Korea and the United States held a summit at Camp David last year to counter China.

Zhang said that with Ishiba now in power in Japan, Joe Biden leaving office in less than a month and the impeachment of South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol, the consensus struck at Camp David could be in question under the new Trump administration.

“For China, this will be a particularly good time to repair relations with Japan so that another Camp David trilateral summit will not happen in the same form soon,” he said.

Zhang Yun, an associate professor of international relations at Niigata University in Japan, said Ishiba had pushed for a more equitable relationship with the US, and more autonomous ties with China.

“Sino-Japanese relations often show initial signs of improvement but it’s a struggle to maintain momentum,” he said, adding that Iwaya’s visit to China was a positive development but it remained to be seen whether the two sides could grasp the momentum.

Zhang from ICAS agreed. “It is too soon to say that these outcomes [from last week’s talks] will produce concrete results that fundamentally repair bilateral relations,” he said.

“But these bilateral mechanisms will certainly build mutual trust through constant and candid exchanges, and will deliver more tangible outcomes as they are … focused on specific issues.”

In Japan, Ishiba’s political base is unstable. He heads a minority government after his Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner the Komeito lost their majority in the lower house of parliament.

Ishiba is walking a political tightrope ahead of the upper house election in July – another electoral defeat would bring calls for accountability, and it could force him to resign as prime minister.

According to Zhang from Niigata University, another challenge to any thaw in ties with China was likely to come from Trump.

“If Trump opts to comprehensively pressure and contain China, he is likely to require Tokyo to obediently follow suit,” he said. “In that scenario, it’s uncertain whether Ishiba would be able to resist US pressure and continue to pursue a more autonomous approach towards dealing with China.”

Lian Degui, director of the Centre for Japanese Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, said Ishiba was determined to boost engagement with China, and that push would continue.

“If Ishiba did not have such a strong desire, he could have waited for Trump to take office to see how the US reacted before making any moves to improve Sino-Japanese relations at this time,” he said.

His approach to Taiwan has also been different from that of his predecessors, observers say. Ishiba visited the self-ruled island in August before he became prime minister but has refrained from the explicit support shown by other Japanese leaders. He also said the Taiwan situation was “more complex” than when Japan and China normalised relations in 1972.

Hatch said Ishiba’s position on Taiwan was more nuanced and less slavishly pro-US than previous governments under Fumio Kishida and the late Shinzo Abe.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of China to be united, by force if necessary. Japan, like most other countries including the US, does not recognise the island as independent. Washington opposes any attempt to take Taiwan by force and is legally bound to supply weapons to the island. Tokyo has also intensified engagement with the island in recent years, stoking tensions with Beijing.

Zhang from ICAS said given that the US commitment to Taiwan was not clear under Trump 2.0, “it is wise not to attract too much attention to the issue of Taiwan since it will be Japan, not the US, who will be at the forefront in a potential Taiwan contingency”.

China and Japan have stepped up engagement in recent months, but analysts say the trajectory of relations will largely come down to Tokyo’s political situation and its ties with the incoming Donald Trump administration.

Last week, when Takeshi Iwaya made his first visit to China as Japanese foreign minister, the two sides agreed to increase exchanges, to make it easier for Chinese to visit Japan, and to restart dialogue on security and diplomacy as well as talks on Japanese beef and milled rice imports.

It followed a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Peru last month, when they agreed to work on “constructive and stable” ties, and talks between Ishiba and Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Asean summit in Laos in October.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is also said to be planning a Japan trip in February for an economic dialogue last held in 2019 and could extend an invitation for Ishiba to visit China, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported, citing diplomatic sources.

Ishiba told Japanese media over the weekend that frequent engagement was needed to build trust between the two nations.

While security remains a stumbling block, analysts say Tokyo’s recent engagement with Beijing is a response to uncertainty over Washington’s commitment to allies and the potential harm to Japanese interests when Trump returns to the White House next month.

“Ishiba will maintain some level of outreach to Beijing as a hedge against otherwise one-sided, burdensome demands from Washington,” said Walter Hatch, a professor of government at Colby College in Maine and an Asian politics expert.

Japan has depended on the US for security under a defence pact established after World War II – a commitment Trump questioned during his first term, when he called for Tokyo to pay more for US troops stationed on Japanese soil. Trump is expected to again apply pressure on that front and has also threatened to impose higher tariffs on imports from China and other countries.

“With ‘America first’ Trumpism on the rise in Washington, both Tokyo and Beijing have a strong interest in building better ties to protect against unilateralism,” Hatch said.

Meanwhile Ishiba wants to “rebalance Japan’s relations with the world’s two superpowers, asserting a bit more autonomy in the otherwise highly subordinate alliance with the US”.

“With Trump about to take office, Ishiba wants to signal that Tokyo will not be bullied into deals with Washington that would undermine Japanese interests,” Hatch said.

“He wants the president-elect to know that Japan has other options.”

But it will involve mending fences with Beijing. Relations between the Asian neighbours have been strained in recent years over Japan’s wartime aggression, their territorial disputes in the East China Sea, and the issue of Taiwan.

At the same time, Japan has moved closer to the US amid the escalating rivalry between Beijing and Washington and concerns over China’s growing military might – and its activities close to Japan.

According to Zhang Yilun, a research associate at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), Beijing has an opportunity to improve relations with both Tokyo and Seoul.

Japan, South Korea and the United States held a summit at Camp David last year to counter China.

Zhang said that with Ishiba now in power in Japan, Joe Biden leaving office in less than a month and the impeachment of South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol, the consensus struck at Camp David could be in question under the new Trump administration.

“For China, this will be a particularly good time to repair relations with Japan so that another Camp David trilateral summit will not happen in the same form soon,” he said.

Zhang Yun, an associate professor of international relations at Niigata University in Japan, said Ishiba had pushed for a more equitable relationship with the US, and more autonomous ties with China.

“Sino-Japanese relations often show initial signs of improvement but it’s a struggle to maintain momentum,” he said, adding that Iwaya’s visit to China was a positive development but it remained to be seen whether the two sides could grasp the momentum.

Zhang from ICAS agreed. “It is too soon to say that these outcomes [from last week’s talks] will produce concrete results that fundamentally repair bilateral relations,” he said.

“But these bilateral mechanisms will certainly build mutual trust through constant and candid exchanges, and will deliver more tangible outcomes as they are … focused on specific issues.”

In Japan, Ishiba’s political base is unstable. He heads a minority government after his Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner the Komeito lost their majority in the lower house of parliament.

Ishiba is walking a political tightrope ahead of the upper house election in July – another electoral defeat would bring calls for accountability, and it could force him to resign as prime minister.

According to Zhang from Niigata University, another challenge to any thaw in ties with China was likely to come from Trump.

“If Trump opts to comprehensively pressure and contain China, he is likely to require Tokyo to obediently follow suit,” he said. “In that scenario, it’s uncertain whether Ishiba would be able to resist US pressure and continue to pursue a more autonomous approach towards dealing with China.”

Lian Degui, director of the Centre for Japanese Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, said Ishiba was determined to boost engagement with China, and that push would continue.

“If Ishiba did not have such a strong desire, he could have waited for Trump to take office to see how the US reacted before making any moves to improve Sino-Japanese relations at this time,” he said.

His approach to Taiwan has also been different from that of his predecessors, observers say. Ishiba visited the self-ruled island in August before he became prime minister but has refrained from the explicit support shown by other Japanese leaders. He also said the Taiwan situation was “more complex” than when Japan and China normalised relations in 1972.

Hatch said Ishiba’s position on Taiwan was more nuanced and less slavishly pro-US than previous governments under Fumio Kishida and the late Shinzo Abe.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of China to be united, by force if necessary. Japan, like most other countries including the US, does not recognise the island as independent. Washington opposes any attempt to take Taiwan by force and is legally bound to supply weapons to the island. Tokyo has also intensified engagement with the island in recent years, stoking tensions with Beijing.

Zhang from ICAS said given that the US commitment to Taiwan was not clear under Trump 2.0, “it is wise not to attract too much attention to the issue of Taiwan since it will be Japan, not the US, who will be at the forefront in a potential Taiwan contingency”.