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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode I'll be talking to journalists, experts and long-time China watchers about the latest in Chinese politics, society and more.

There will be a smattering of history to catch you up on the background knowledge and some context as well. How do the Chinese see these issues? So it's no secret that

President Trump is a fan of wars, but while he doesn't often mention his Mexico war these days,

to all intents and purposes, Trump seems to be wielding an American firewall, shutting out Chinese apps and tech.

Recently, he signed two executive orders aimed at banning TikTok and retchat.

The messaging app ubiquitously used in China and buy the overseas Chinese.

And these bans are meant to come in within 45 days for both.

So that gives these companies until mid-September to either sell

their US-based businesses or pack their bags out of America. Coming on the back of the

Huawei ban, perhaps it isn't so surprising. But now we're talking about national security concerns

in social media apps owned by Chinese companies rather than telecoms. We chat in particular is a different kettle

of fish. It has over a billion monthly active users, and to put that up into perspective,

that's three times as many as Twitter. So it really has a big impact. To discuss, I've invited

back Duncan Clark, an expert on Chinese businesses who I spoke to about Huawei and Alibaba two episodes ago.

And we're also joined by Ray Ma, a former venture capitalist, who is a co-host of the podcast TechBuzz China.

Welcome both.

So let's start with WeChat.

Ray, I don't think there's any app that's quite like it in the West because it's not just a messaging app.

Can you explain to listeners who haven't seen it

...