Old tailor keeps traditional dress alive in Hong Kong

"If the year doesn't get off to a good start and consumers don't spend their money, China will remain in deflation for a long time," Wang Guo-Chen, an economist focusing on China at Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, told DW.

In terms of battery production, industrial innovation and sales, China is clearly number one on the scale of competitiveness. "Asian suppliers have a dominant position here, at least for the time being," he added. And for German car makers, things are not moving in the right direction.

Manila has dared Beijing to take legal action over its claims to a disputed reef in the South China Sea. China's territorial claims in the South China Sea were already dismissed by a Hague tribunal in 2016.

A convoy of Chinese engineers was targeted by an attacker driving an explosive-laden vehicle, according to local authorities.

TikTok is once again in the crosshairs of the US administration, after the House of Representatives voted in favour of a bill that would force its Chinese owner ByteDance to divest itself of the social media platform or see it banned in the US. Charles Pellegrin asks journalist Océane Herrero, who's written a book on TikTok, what it would mean for the future of the video-sharing app if the bill were signed into law.

The Venice Biennale, which runs this year from April 20 to November 24, is one of the world's most prestigious international art shows, alongside the documents in the German city of Kassel.