this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. in tokyo, a solemn ceremony: japan's emperor naruhito expresses deep remorse for his country's past military actions. more protests take place in belarus over last weekend's disputed election — despite president lukashenko warning people not to take to the streets again. the us postal service says it cannot

guarantee all ballots will arrive in time to be counted. holiday—makers returning home from france having to quarantine under new restrictions. it comes as a second wave of virus infections are threatening to create more disruption and chaos on the continent. now on bbc news, it is time for click. the us‘s biggest rival on social media and communications and the us is pushing back hard. this week, we ask what is going on in china?

this week we are going to bring you up—to—date with one of the most important parts of the technology world. it is a place that is a long way away geographically and a place thatis way away geographically and a place that is challenging tech dominance. i'm of course talking about china. there is a phrase which means a contradiction. like an unstoppable force meeting in immovable object. in rome politics, china the unstoppable in rome politics, china the u nstoppa ble force in rome politics, china the unstoppable force meeting in the

usa, the immovable object —— in world politics. when i first went to china 15 years ago it was clear it would be the next technology superpower. fast forward to 2020 and chinese companies are broken into the west any big way. probably the best—known of these are tech talk and huawei. they have both drawn criticism, to say the least. the biggest fish here is huawei. it has beenin biggest fish here is huawei. it has been in uk telecoms part 20 years or so. been in uk telecoms part 20 years or so. most recently beginning to be a pa rt so. most recently beginning to be a part of the uk's sg so. most recently beginning to be a part of the uk's 56 network. in july, the government here part of the uk's 5g network. in july, the government here bandit. to understand what is going on now here isa understand what is going on now here is a quick refresher on huawei. it

may look like paris, but this is huawei's brand—new campus in china. a huge site where employees... few journalists have visited this disney world —like project, very much the brain child of the company's founder. he has been compared to the likes of steve jobs, growing his company from a small workshop to a global tech giant, now employing 180,000 people. huawei is currently enjoying huge success, with revenues last year in excess of $100 billion. but this is also a company facing some serious issues. the beggars is that the us is coming for huawei and a big way —— the biggest. that the us is coming for huawei and a big way -- the biggest. we have

met the enemy and it is huawei and china, make no doubt about that. huawei, through access to unlimited capitalfrom huawei, through access to unlimited capital from the chinese communist government, all of this technology is built in for a cyber spying and espionage, because that is what the chinese do. the problem as he was once a member of china's liberation army, and has raised suspicions about his link to the chinese state and whether it and huawei may have each other‘s backs. america is adamant that huawei is a point of the chinese authorities. in 2017, china passed the national intelligence law, which says that if asked all chinese companies and citizens must help the government to assist national intelligence efforts. china claims this is part ofan efforts. china claims this is part of an effort to safeguard its security. the fear as, if you are weight supplies any country's 5g

network, the chinese could exploit it. ina network, the chinese could exploit it. in a future where our entire infrastructure, economy and lives are run by computers talking to each other over a 5g network, what would happen if someone shot that network downif you think about it, the future of warfare is not necessarily going to be using traditional armies -- like as we think with the world wars, it is mostly going to be cyber, so without firing a shot you can takea cyber, so without firing a shot you can take a country out. it is feared the chinese state could order huawei to build secret back doors in a 5g network. these would leave the country vulnerable to a nationwide cyber attack. that could be catastrophic. so, what is new? in may, the us government published one short piece of legislation which had

a massive impact on global technology. it may look quite dull, but what this means is that if your company uses american tools and softwa re company uses american tools and software to make stuff for huawei, you will break us law. the us will blacklist you. so this stops most companies from supplying huawei for fear of angering the us. for example, the chips which huawei used to run its products were manufactured by companies like taiwan —based tsmc, who use american softwa re taiwan —based tsmc, who use american software to help design and build the chips. under this new rule, tsmc can't make chips for huawei and carry on trading with the us. which means for many companies it is a choice between china and the us. the

way chips are produced is very reliant on some tools and techniques that are owned by a very small number of american companies. what the american government has done is basically say we can no longer use those, these chinese companies can no longer use those. if they carry on using it will be done illegally 01’ on using it will be done illegally or they are going to have to look for alternative sources. if the finals those alternative sources, it sta rts finals those alternative sources, it starts to become much more like a black box to us, because we have much less of an understanding from a security assurance point of view, and that tips you open to the point where you say, well, i can be sure enough about this now so i'm going to have to not use it. —— i can't be sure enough. it is notjust the uk facing the problem, germany, france, many have begun to use the cheaper and more advanced huawei 5g infrastructure. remember that chinese phrase? america is becoming

the immovable object trying to stop chinese companies in their tracks. but before you start to think this all sounds a bit unfair, it is worth recalling that china has banned almost all western companies for yea rs almost all western companies for years from the chinese market. so what can be done now? the short term is... the mobile operators, they have no choice but to sign contracts two there are two major players. governments around the world and the operators are keen to open in some way and to introduce alternatives to

nokia and ericsson. welcome to the wrekin tech. they show recognition technology has been ruled unlawful and in violation of human rights. protests in belarus. and after 35 yea rs protests in belarus. and after 35 years and a laptop game, toshiba sold its last share of its last taken the personal computer since. google plans to build the biggest earthquake detection system. it uses tiny accelerometers built into smartphones and has a size or mentor that detects tremors. is this the future of photography? google has developed an ai model to create 3d

models of new and complete scenes using still photographs. the model can even using still photographs. the model ca n even ca th re using still photographs. the model can even capture lighting changes without compromising the image. finally, if you are in need of a cuddly friend without the long—term commitment... this could be the closest thing. there are an estimated 5 million chinese people living in the states. president trung's focus on banning tech talk has stolen most of the

headlines —— president trump. it hisses targeting of wee chat that could have an even bigger and more profound impact. that is because it has morphed into a colossus. just less of an app more like an operating system. this is a chinese student studying in london expelling what it is. -- studying in london. you can find out where hospitals are, theatres, movie tickets, restau ra nts, are, theatres, movie tickets, restaurants, booking hotels. if you wa nt to restaurants, booking hotels. if you want to find out a playstation, i have an account for business, selling things on it. everything in your light is on the sat? it has become so big and part of everyday life —— it has become essential to is more than 1 life —— it has become essential to is more than1 billion users. how

would you describe it, how is important —— how important is it? would you describe it, how is important —— how important is mm is my life. the family connection, the home feeling, if i don't have this i feel lonely. the owner -- the owners won't say how many users it has, but it is thought to run into the tens of millions. it has caught the tens of millions. it has caught the attention of the us authorities. president trump has mentioned impending action on tick—tock. these are significant threats to our personal data. tiktok says it doesn't hold any of its data inside china and would never give that to

the chinese government. many security experts believe it is wechat that hold greater security risk. this is the former security officerfor and facebook. risk. this is the former security officer for and facebook. tiktok simeon in my top ten of companies to worry about. —— isn't in my top ten. i would worry about tencent because of wechat. 0ne i would worry about tencent because of wechat. one of the most popular apps in the world. people run companies on it, they probably do things that could open them up to blackmail... those are the kinds of appsi blackmail... those are the kinds of apps i would start with. wechat has long been criticised for censoring users in china. a canadian company looked into how it moderated its users outside of china. we find

routinely the topics related to perennial taboo issues like tiananmen square, hong kong, anything to do with tibet or the dalai lama, those are pretty routinely censored. the people we spoke to didn't seem to be too concerned about security issues. the reason why he is saying he doesn't wa nt reason why he is saying he doesn't want it in the us is because he thinks some of the data from users goes to the chinese government. this is not true. it is important to the country. i think that is the good pa rt country. i think that is the good part for us, because if there was not something bad would happen. research has found wechat censoring

political consent and content related to covid—19. political consent and content related to covid-19. we looked in particular at censorship around covid—19 and found that discussions about the pandemic very early on we re about the pandemic very early on were censored, which is highly significant because, of course, physicians who were on the front line warning about the pandemic even before it had a name had their communications censored. tencent deny this and told bbc click... data security isn't the only reason trump has decided to ban wechat. it is far more political than that. to be honest, it is hard to look past the fa ct honest, it is hard to look past the fact these tech companies have been sucked into a wider geopolitical battle between two superpowers. the battle over social

media and especially who owns our personal data, is seen by many as the next big emerging rivalry between china and the us. in march, the chinese owners of internet hook—up app grindr sold up for $600 million, they had been forced to sell by the us regulators over national security concerns relating to the data on the app. in may, chinese social media company kuaishou launched an app in the us called zynn, which after becoming one of the most popular apps, was removed from both the google play store and apple's app store after being accused of plagiarising videos. but tiktok is now under pressure from us regulators and may be banned by the white house. i set a date of around september 15, at which point it will be out of business in the united states. but over in china, social

media has been evolving in a different way. earlier this year, before the pandemic took hold, stephen beckett went to beijing to meet some of the major players in the chinese social media landscape. when it comes to social media, china is a world away from the west — that's in part because of long—term government blocking of us tech giants like google and facebook, and that's partially why the country has evolved its own completely distinct online ecosystem. alibaba is a bit like ebay, weibo is similar to twitter, and wechat started life in much the same way as apps like whatsapp and facebook messenger. perhaps not a surprise, then, but for a time, china had the reputation of a copycat nation. china, with its huge population of over 1.3 billion people has plenty of room for social ideas. and the competition is intense. these are the head offices of kuaishou, they're one of the biggest social networks

here, they've got over 200 million active users, but unless you're in china, you probably haven't heard of it. kuaishou has made a name for itself by targetting china's relatively—untapped rural population, and that's a lot of people — around 40% don't live in cities. and that has led to a platform where the stars aren't necessarily what you expect. kuaishou's secret sauce is the options it gives streamers to make their streams pay. translation: i'm a professional musician. i also give lectures via kuaishou in my spare time, which teach people how to play the chinese sorna. i try to popularise chinese traditional music and knowledge. between sales of recorded lessons, purchases of virtual gifts during livestreams, he says he makes around £15,000 a month, and that is after kuaishou takes their 25% commission. but kuaishou's 200 million

users isn't quite so impressive when you compare it to china's social titan tencent, and their so—called mega app wechat. and now wechat is becoming a daily part of life, thanks to something called mini—programs. translation: wechat mini—programs are an app that doesn't require you to download and install, they are sub—applications within the wechat ecosystem, and a new tool developed by wechat. many programmes allow third parties to add new features to wechat on demand. it's a bit like having the entire app store already on your phone. the idea is that you can pretty much do everything you could ever want on your phone without ever closing wechat. so this convenient store is set up on the campus of wechat‘s head office. and the idea is you canjust walk around, pick up whatever you like and then walk out the door, it will get automatically charged to your wechat account.

wechat relies on users handing over big chunks of their personal data and now that now even includes yourface. these vending machines are set up to use wechat‘s new facial pay feature. the idea is you opt into it in the app and once you've done that, you can use your face to buy anything from these machines. it basically links your face to your face to your wechat account and your government id. but, is the convenience worth the possible cost to privacy? in 2016, amnesty international awarded the parent company of wechat, tencent, zero out of 100 for their privacy practices. i think there's a common perception that people in china don't care about their privacy, and that perception is completely false. the government over the last few years has been trying to roll out its own cybersecurity regulations and trying to educate consumers about the dangers of data being lost or leaked. wechat‘s privacy policy says it will provide the chinese government access to much of what you do in the app when legally required, including the things you type and data like your location.

it's hard to deny that social apps in china have taken on a life of their own, if not outpacing, then going in new directions to competitors in the west. the big question is whether more chinese apps can follow tiktok in going global, despite the concerns around privacy and censorship. or, if not, it could it be the turn of tech companies in the west to play copycat themselves? that was stephen beckett's view of china. and since the explosion of tiktok in the west, other apps have been springing up to try and compete. and chris fox has been looking at some of the alternatives that are available. if you can't get enough of short, hyper—edited videos, luckily there are plenty of apps that have cottoned on to the format. this is triller, which i think is fair to say, has taken a bit of inspiration from tiktok. you can record clips with special effects and share them onto an endless scrolling feed of content. triller seems to have done quite well out of all this

uncertainty, at the start of august, it topped the app store charts on both i0s and android and has managed to attract some big—name tiktok stars and celebrities over to on its platform, including mike tyson and magician dynamo. another app offering a similar experience is byte, which has also been popping in and out of the app store top download charts. like tiktok, it offers you creative effects for your videos, although it is trailing behind triller, it's been downloaded over1 million times on google play, whereas triller has had more than ten million. tiktok‘s biggest competition may come from instagram reels, instagram's newly—launched rival. it has incorporated many of tiktok‘s core features, including that endlessly—scrolling feed of short videos. just in the past few weeks, mark zuckerberg has appeared at a congressional hearing about big tech companies using their power to neutralise the competition. isn't ripping off tiktok

essentially doing that? there is innovation everywhere and people are constantly inspired by what they see. it's no longer a surprise to see a feed in a mobile social product, that wasn't the case until facebook brought that to scale. we brought stories to instagram in 2016. and give full credit to snap for inventing that format, but evolved it from there. so what is instagram bringing to the table with this format, that makes it different to tiktok? i think the ability to be discovered is unique to reels. i think in instagram, historically, if you had a large follower base it was easier to kind of get bigger. this is now a product specifically designed to help creators find an audience. now, to be fair to tiktok, i think the idea that you never know what video is going to go viral or who get discovered is what draws people to tiktok. it's certainly not unique to instagram reels, but i think companies are seeing tiktok has refined a winning formula and they want a piece of the action. and that's it for this week.

next week, we're going to be looking at another hugely important topic — the technology being used to fight climate change. until then, you can keep with us on social media, on youtube, facebook, instagram and twitter @bbcclick. thanks for watching, and we'll see you soon. hello. we've now lost the intense heat of the past week. 0ur temperatures return closer to average values for the time of year. what we've not lost is a lot of humidity. as a consequence of it cooling down, many of us will see scenes like these over the weekend, cloudy, misty and murky. some of us will also pick up

some punchier showers. thunderstorms should not be as widespread as the previous week. but showers spread into the south of the uk on saturday, migrating their way further north over england and wales through the afternoon. if the sun does pop out over the south—east, it will inject more energy into the atmosphere and here we could see some thunderstorms through the afternoon. top temperatures, 2a or 25 degrees in the sunshine. ten degrees down on the weekjust gone. north sea coasts always cooler because of the persistent mist and low cloud here, so high teens are best. she was in the south—east are pretty lively for the evening. showers in the south—east are pretty lively for the evening. they should taper off as we go into the small hours on sunday. staying dry for scotland and northern ireland. still pretty muggy to the south. lows of 17 and 18 degrees. sunday, similar set—up to saturday. low pressure to the south, high pressure to the north. the showers will make their way further north through the course of sunday, so a greater chance of us

seeing some wetter weather over northern england and wales through sunday. northern ireland and scotland, it looks like they could escape essentially with a dry weekend. high teens or low 20s in the north, 23 or 2a to the south on sunday. into monday, you can see the low drift further north once again, so a greater risk of some showers putting into southern scotland and across northern ireland on monday. some sunny spells for england and wales, but a chance of some heavier downpours perhaps with the odd rumble of thunder. some of the showers will materialise with enough intensity that we could get some localised flooding. for the week ahead, low pressure stays pretty close. later on in the week, we could see this area of low pressure coming oui’ way and by the end of the week things could almost feel positively autumnal. certainly cooler and our biggest problem could be some very strong winds.

good afternoon. the prince of wales has led commemorations for the 75th anniversary of vj day — when japan's surrender ended the second world war. prince charles joined veterans and military personnel for a service at the national memorial arboretum in staffordshire. he paid tribute to the courage of those who fought, saying their service and sacrifice would "echo through the ages" and he remembered all those who lives were blighted by the conflict.