At one end of this map, we find what I call Non-Hegemonic Autonomy – economies like China, Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia that have managed to subordinate their external relations to internal developmental priorities. What makes their autonomy distinctive is that it does not derive from imperial positioning at the apex of the global hierarchy, but from a deliberate political and institutional strategy: what Amin theorised as the condition for autocentric peripheral development. The hegemonic centres – the United States, Germany, Japan – also display low dependency, but for qualitatively different reasons that reflect imperial extraction rather than developmental achievement.

The most troubling configuration is that of the Subordinate Periphery – economies trapped in high dependency with depleted institutional capacity. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Honduras, Kenya, the Philippines: these are societies where decades of structural adjustment have dismantled the very institutions that might have enabled a different trajectory. The perverse logic here is self-reinforcing – the weaker the state’s developmental capacity, the deeper the dependency, the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct that capacity.

Finally, the most analytically significant – and politically contested – terrain is what I term the Contested Semi-Periphery. India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, and arguably Russia occupies this space, where significant state capacity coexists with persistent structural constraints. These economies possess institutional resources that could, under different class configurations, be deployed for genuine developmental transformation. But they remain trapped in contradictory positions: enough capacity to resist full subordination, yet insufficient political articulation to break the structural logic of dependency. It is precisely in this contested zone where the political stakes of the multipolar transition are highest.

A As the United States has continued to stage a large scale military buildup in the Middle East, with the apparent goal of preparing for large scale military action against Iran, the possibly of U.S. security partners playing roles in hostilities has remained high. Leaders across the Western Bloc, and particularly in Europe, have expressed clear support for the goal of topping the Iranian state, while the United Kingdom has deployed forces including fighter aircraft to the Middle East which are poised to provide support. While regional states such as Jordan have taken part in Western-led operations against Iran in the past, the much larger scale and greater intensity of a possible new phase of hostilities has raised the possibility of much greater participation from Western-aligned regional actors, with Turkey in particular poised to play a major role.

While Turkey has played a primary role in the wider U.S. campaign against Iran through sustained attacks and support for jihadist paramilitary forces against Iran’s primary security partner Syria, resulting in the state’s collapse in December 2024 after close to 14 years of hostilities, it has also played a wider role beyond providing basing rights for U.S. and other Western forces. Following an Israeli attack on Iran in June 13, the Turkish Kurecik Radar Station in the country’s Malatya province played an important role in supporting Israeli missile defence efforts to block Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks. Iranian state media outlet Press TV cited officials stating on this basis that Turkey was “spying on Iran for Zionist interests.” The AN/TPY-2 radar systems at the facility in question were installed U.S. military personnel in the early 2010s, allowing it to open it 2012.

The Turkish government confirmed that radar data from the Kurecik base is shared with the other NATO members, and was “established in line with Turkey’s national security and interests and is intended to ensure the protection of the NATO allies,” meaning data could be used to protect U.S. and other Western forces at bases across the Middle East, including U.S. Armed Forces units in Israel. Beyond the AN/TPY-2 system, however, Turkey has also operationalised one of the most potent missile defence systems in the Middle East, the Russian S-400, which appears poised to play a key role in possible hostilities. Turkish officials’ arguments regarding the need to procure the S-400 have specifically cited the requirement for an advanced missile defence capability against Iran, with the system’s sensor suite is also capable of providing early warning and targeting data from far beyond Turkey’s borders.

The S-400’s 91N6E “Big Bird” 3D long-range surveillance & target acquisition radar provides the a panoramic surveillance capability for wide-area airspace scanning and target tracking, with a range of up to 600 kilometres, allowing it to ‘peer’ deep into Iran. The system can track hundreds of targets simultaneously, and operates in multiple bands with electronic protection/jamming resistance. This is complemented by the 96L6, an additional 3D acquisition radar covering a wide altitude range, which is optimised for detecting low-flying targets such as unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles, filling gaps in coverage from the main radar. These radar systems can provide invaluable early warning against Iranian missile strikes, potentially allowing U.S. and Israeli aircraft to launch precision strikes on the locations of Iranian missile launches at much earlier stages, while cueing Western and Israeli missile defence assets across the region.

The possibly of the S-400 system being utilised in roles beyond missile early warning remains significant in the event of a high intensity conflict, with Turkey’s treaty alliance with the United States and longstanding strategic partnership with Israel meaning it may be relied on for support. The S-400’s 40N6 missiles have demonstrated the capability to intercept hypersonic ballistic targets at speeds of up to Mach 8, and at ranges of up to 400 kilometres, which is a capability unmatched by Western and Israeli systems. This could be used to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles to protect U.S. and other allied facilities. The support the Untied States has been able to draw on from a wide range of regional security partners to achieve its strategic goals, where Iran after the toppling of the Syrian state has remained isolated, has placed Washington in a highly advantageous position to pursue its war effort, with Turkey’s role having been particularly central. With Russia having provided Turkey with full autonomy in utilising the S-400, which was customised to be able to integrate with NATO-standard networks, the system is poised to play a major role in broader allied missile defence efforts in the region.

President Karol Nawrocki has called for Poland to seek a nuclear deterrent, saying that it is necessary in the face of an “aggressive, imperial Russia”.

Speaking on Sunday to Polsat News, Nawrocki was asked about German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s comments at the ongoing Munich Security Conference, where he revealed that he has “begun confidential talks with the French President [Emmanuel Macron] on European nuclear deterrence”.

“I’m a huge advocate of Poland joining a nuclear project,” responded Nawrocki, saying that it would help “build Poland’s security”.

Pressed as to whether this should mean so-called “nuclear sharing” with other allies or Poland developing its own programme, Nawrocki said only that “the path to Polish nuclear potential, while respecting all international regulations, is the path we should take”.

“We need to start acting in this direction so that we can begin work,” continued the president. “We are a country right on the border of an armed conflict [in Ukraine]. It is clear what the aggressive, imperial Russia’s attitude toward Poland is.”

Asked whether he was concerned about the Russian response to Poland seeking a nuclear deterrent, Nawrocki said that “Russia can react aggressively to anything” and that it is important for Poles “to feel safe”.

Distinguished guests, teachers, and students:

Hello everyone. The title of my remarks today is “Boosting Consumption: The Key Is to Activate the Endogenous Momentum of Household Consumption.”

Boosting consumption, also described as expanding or stimulating consumption, is not a new topic. But at this particular moment, as the 15th Five-Year Plan period begins, the task looks different in one important respect: policy efforts to boost consumption should focus more directly on strengthening households’ endogenous willingness and capacity to consume. That is the core point that needs to be made clear.

I. Facing squarely four new challenges

The Annual Central Economic Work Conference has put forward the concepts of long-standing and new challenges. In the case of boosting consumption, what are the new challenges behind this familiar agenda?

The first is the challenge to keep economic growth within a reasonable range during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China set the goal of basically achieving socialist modernisation by 2035. With only ten years remaining until 2035, the 15th Five-Year Plan period is a critical phase for laying the groundwork and scaling up efforts.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China further proposed that the 15th Five-Year Plan period should deliver decisive progress towards basically achieving socialist modernisation. This is not merely a qualitative aspiration; it also comes with firm quantitative requirements. One key benchmark is that per capita GDP should reach the level of moderately developed countries. Using 2025 figures, the entry threshold is roughly US$25,000 to US$26,000. China’s per capita GDP in 2024 was US$13,500. In other words, per capita GDP would need to roughly double over the next ten years to meet that benchmark.

This implies that China’s development agenda has entered a “countdown” phase. Any discussion of boosting consumption must therefore start from a clear premise: over the next decade, growth needs to be kept within a reasonable range.

The second challenge is: What will drive and sustain growth within a reasonable range? A broad consensus has now formed that consumption is both the primary engine of economic growth and a stabilising anchor. Put plainly, keeping growth within a reasonable range depends mainly on domestic demand—and, within domestic demand, first and foremost on consumption. Any discussion of boosting consumption has to engage with this proposition directly.

The third challenge is that, within the realm of domestic demand, the most prominent constraint at present is weak consumption. The Central Economic Work Conference noted that “the contradiction of strong domestic supply and weak domestic demand is acute.” The clearest expression of “weak demand” is, precisely, sluggish consumption.

The 2025 trajectory of growth in total retail sales of consumer goods illustrates this clearly. Growth reached 6.4% in May 2025, then fell steadily, dropping to 1.3% by November. December data have not yet been released, but the trend points to a level around 1%, or slightly above. [In December, the total retail sales of consumer goods in China rose by 0.9% year on year. The data was released on 20 January, three days after Gao’s speech. —Yuxuan’s note]

2025 was the year in which China’s fiscal and monetary policies were mobilised most intensively to support consumption, with the associated policy costs likely reaching historical highs. When the relationship between policy inputs and outcomes is taken into account, weak consumption necessarily emerges as the central issue. If the objective is to expand domestic demand, the priority must be to overcome this weakness in consumption.

The fourth challenge is that today’s shortfall in consumption demand has distinctive features of its own. Taking total retail sales of consumer goods as the core indicator, insufficient consumption can be divided into four scenarios: volume and prices rising together; volume and prices falling together; volume rising while prices fall; and volume falling while prices rise. The weakness in consumption demand in 2025 falls squarely into the third category—volume rising while prices fall.

Data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on 21 October 2025 can serve as supporting evidence. In the first three quarters of 2025, domestic residents made 4.988 billion trips, an increase of 18% year on year, while total tourism spending reached RMB 4.88 trillion, up 11.5%. These headline figures appear robust, but the gap of 6.5 percentage points between the two growth rates is telling. Average spending per trip actually declined, from RMB 1,024 in 2024 to RMB 970.

II. Telling four “new stories” well

The domestic travel data cited above show a distinctive pattern in current domestic consumption: volume is rising, while prices are falling. This suggests that China’s economy has new stories to tell, and that consumption, as part of the broader economic picture, also has new stories. The basic logic behind these new developments needs to be explained clearly and made widely understood.

The first “new story” concerns insufficient consumption demand under the intertwined dynamics of rising volume and falling prices. When discussing total retail sales of consumer goods, the scale of consumption, and related indicators, it is essential to separate the “volume” and “price” components. In essence, consumption is volume times price. At present, the main source of consumption weakness lies mainly in falling prices, and these price declines are not the result of changes in market supply-and-demand relations.

The second “new story” is to look beyond the surface and identify what sits behind insufficient consumption demand—namely, expectations and confidence. The tourism market provides a clear example: the core reason per-capita spending has fallen is not shifting supply-and-demand conditions, but weaker market expectations and subdued consumer confidence. What looks like weak demand on the surface is, at its root, weaker expectations; what appears to be insufficient consumption is, in substance, insufficient confidence.

The Government Work Report delivered at the 2025 National People’s Congress identifies one particularly prominent contradiction: “Sluggish domestic demand was compounded by weak public expectations .” Linking weak domestic demand with weak expectations in discussing the prominent challenges facing China’s economic performance is something that warrants special attention.

The third “new story” that needs to be told well is the relationship between pressures on employment and income, weaker expectations, and insufficient demand.

What has led to weaker market expectations and a lack of confidence across society? The draft proposals on the 15th Five-Year Plan issued by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee explicitly note that current economic performance faces the challenge of “considerable pressure weighing on employment and personal income growth” The Central Economic Work Conference contains similar language.

It is precisely these pressures on employment and income growth that have weakened households’ expectations about future job prospects and income growth, thereby suppressing current consumption demand.

The fourth “new story” is the need to view consumption through three dimensions: demand, supply, and expectations. The Annual Central Economic Work Conference in 2021 made an important judgment with a historic turning-point significance: “China’s economic development is facing pressure from demand contraction, supply shocks and weakening expectations.”

Re-reading this statement at today’s historical juncture, it is more than a list of problems and contradictions. More importantly, it provides a framework for understanding them. Whether the task is to discuss consumption or to assess the broader economic situation, the approach must differ from the past: demand, supply, and expectations need to be examined together, as part of an integrated analysis.

III. Reaffirming four basic common understandings

In exploring how to boost consumption amid profound changes in the economic landscape, several points basic to economic reasoning need to be reaffirmed and kept firmly in view.

First, consumption is a function of income and wealth accumulation. Changes in the pattern of income and wealth accumulation shape the direction of households’ expectations and confidence. When pressures on employment and income alter expectations and lead to insufficient consumption, efforts to boost consumption must start with improving the underlying pattern of income formation and wealth accumulation.

Ángela María Vergara, a member of the Conservative Party who has supported President Donald Trump and opposed social reforms in Colombia, reported that her 22-year-old son has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States for 17 days.

“There are no guarantees in absolutely anything.”

In a video, Vergara asked for help to free his son, Rafael Alfonso Vergara, who was detained by immigration agents in Louisiana while working for a freight transport company.

“One would think that the prison system in the United States is different, but from what I am experiencing firsthand, there are absolutely no guarantees,” the representative stated.

According to his testimony, the officers handcuffed his son, confiscated his belongings, and transferred him to the River Correctional Center detention center in Louisiana. In a three-minute phone call, the young man denounced the harsh and inhumane conditions he faces, which have caused him emotional distress.

The path of voluntary departure

Given the situation, the family suggested a voluntary departure as the only way to regain their freedom. This process can take more than 45 days to be finalized. The congresswoman requested that diplomatic channels be activated to expedite repatriation flights and that the hundreds of cases of Colombians in similar circumstances be monitored.

Currently, thousands of families face immense anguish due to the lack of information about the whereabouts of their detained loved ones. Furthermore, once they accept deportation, they must wait for humanitarian flights and pay for their own return tickets.

Former President Andrés Pastrana, known for being a friend of Epstein, meet with Ángela María Vergara.

The political career of Ángela Vergara

In the past, the Supreme Court investigated Vergara for allegedly receiving bribes from percentages of local contracts, when he served as a councilman in Cartagena, to favor a candidate for the local mayoralty.

The congresswoman, along with her party, has opposed the Financing Law and the social reforms promoted by Gustavo Petro’s government. She has also sided with the U.S. government in diplomatic conflicts with the Colombian president.

Vergara is part of the pro-life caucus, where he has promoted positions that, according to his critics, have fostered discrimination against the beliefs of indigenous peoples.

The congresswoman defended Charlie Kirk, a far-right American activist who died under strange circumstances last year.

Figures on immigration persecution

According to data from the ICE Deportation Data Project, between January 20, 2025—when Trump assumed his second term—and October 15 of that year, federal agents arrested 6,814 Colombians. This figure represents a 46% increase compared to the same period in 2024, when 3,161 arrests were recorded.

This means that, on average, during the first ten months of the Trump administration, about 25 Colombians were taken into immigration custody every day. Of these, 264 were minors.

Only 1,201 Colombians detained had a criminal conviction. That is, 82% of those arrested by ICE had no criminal record.

Government silence and repatriations

So far, Congresswoman Vergara has received expressions of solidarity from various political parties, including the governing party. However, there has been no official statement from the Executive branch regarding her specific case. The only announcement made was the arrival of the latest repatriation flight from the United States, carrying 112 Colombians, who were received with care and inter-institutional support.

U.S. arbitrary measures hinder the Bolivarian nation’s development. During an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC News in Caracas, Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez stated that her country needs to be free of sanctions in order to hold elections and develop its energy potential.

“Holding free and fair elections in Venezuela also means having a free country where justice can be exercised. A country free of sanctions,” she said, emphasizing how U.S. sanctions hinder the growth of the Bolivarian nation as an energy power and as a sovereign people.

Her remarks come amid what Venezuelan authorities describe as the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, who has been held illegally by the U.S. in a maximum-security prison in New York since Jan. 3, 2025.

Rodriguez’s statements echo those of Maduro, who since 2020 has repeatedly said Venezuela seeks “elections free of sanctions, of blockades, of aggression” and of “economic war.”

In November 2022, during a press conference with international media, President Maduro announced that the Bolivarian government would resume comprehensive dialogue with all sectors of the opposition to ensure elections are held in a scenario free of sanctions.

During that appearance, the Venezuelan president underscored that electoral transparency and justice depend directly on compliance with political agreements and the end of what he described as economic siege against the nation.

In July 2023, Maduro again emphasized that Venezuela wants “elections free of sanctions, of blockades, of aggression, and of economic war.” He once more demanded that the U.S. government lift all such measures “without any conditions.”

“We want elections free of sanctions, of blockades, of aggression, of economic war. Lift all the so-called sanctions. The North American empire must lift all sanctions, without any conditions whatsoever, and we will move forward,” President Maduro said.

With what she described as a firm commitment to defending Venezuela’s independence, Rodriguez reiterated that the path toward political normalization requires the total elimination of what she called “so-called sanctions,” allowing the exercise of suffrage to be a sovereign expression of the people’s will in defense of justice and national dignity.

Nicolas Maduro Is the Legitimate President of Venezuela

Asked about leadership in the country, Rodriguez stressed that Maduro remains the legitimate president and that she is serving as acting president with daily and rigorous effort.

She reaffirmed her legitimacy at the head of the executive branch, explaining that she assumed leadership following constitutional order after the kidnapping of President Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores.

The Venezuelan acting president pointed out that her country’s institutional stability has allowed progress in high-level meetings, such as a recent meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to evaluate projects of mutual benefit.

An Invitation to Visit the United States

On Wednesday, Rodriguez met with Wright to evaluate an energy agenda beneficial to both nations within the framework of historic bilateral relations.

The acting president stressed that, through peace diplomacy, both countries can overcome their differences. She also mentioned receiving an invitation to travel to the United States, a possibility currently under consideration.

“We are considering going there once we establish this cooperation and can move forward with everything,” Rodriguez said, leaving the door open to future rapprochement.

Jan. 3, 2026, is already considered a key date in contemporary Latin American history. On that day, the U.S. government attacked a sovereign nation, kidnapped President Maduro and lawmaker Flores, leaving hundreds dead and widespread destruction.

Venezuelan society is still processing the U.S. aggression. Citizens are seeking explanations for the uncertainties affecting the political and economic landscape: what is the relationship between the two spheres, and which of them — or both — account for circumstances shaking daily life.

In recent days, amid the situation, Acting president Rodriguez reiterated that peaceful coexistence is the path toward the country’s economic and social peace. She underscored the importance of full public participation in all national initiatives.

She said the goal for 2026 is to consolidate grassroots power and indicated that authorities will seek to support communities in organizing so that economic growth translates into social well-being for workers. She reiterated that Venezuela is advancing in national cohesion and rebuilding bridges with other countries through working agendas aimed at benefiting the people.