Dutch push back against US controls on China semiconductor tech, Holy See angered over installation of Chinese bishop & Beijing's "digital Stasi" moves in to quash protests -- China Boss News 12.05.22
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Dutch push back against US controls on China semiconductor tech
“The Netherlands will defend its economic interests when it comes to the sales of chip equipment to China” Bloomberg last week said citing a senior Dutch official. Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Liesje Schreinemacher’s comments came in response to Washington’s demands to restrict sales of immersion lithography machines, made by Dutch firm ASML, to China, news staff said.
Bloomberg :
“It is important that we defend our own interests -- our national safety, but also our economic interests,” Schreinemacher told lawmakers at the parliament in The Hague. “If we put that in an EU basket and negotiate with the US and in the end it turns out we give away deep ultraviolet lithography machines to the US, we are worse off.”
But those comments may have also been influenced by recent diplomatic exchanges with Beijing, as news reports suggest. Xi Jinping recently invited the Dutch Prime Minister to visit Beijing after a “bilateral meeting at the G20 conference in Bali in which Xi urged the Netherlands not to politicize trade,” according to a Reuters’ update. The official PRC readout of the meeting belabored his point.
MOFA, Press Statement, Nov. 15th:
President Xi underscored that the world is a community where all countries need to cooperate with rather than “decouple” from one another. The attempt to politicize economic and trade issues must be rejected, and stability of global industrial and supply chains should be maintained. China will work with the Netherlands to uphold and practice true multilateralism, stay on the right course of economic globalization and defend the WTO-centered multilateral trading system, in an effort to jointly create an enabling international environment for development. It is hoped that the Netherlands would enhance Europe’s commitment to openness and cooperation, and play a positive role in promoting the healthy and steady growth of China-Europe relations.
Although hopes for an “immediate accord” were slim, US and Dutch trade officials met in the Netherlands a few days after Schreinemacher's speech, Bloomberg analysts said - noting that their “issues will be a topic of conversation early next month at the Trade and Technology Council.”
CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal said “ASML one of the most important chip companies in the world” due to its “de-facto monopoly” on the machines used to make advanced semiconductors, and that Washington “is worried” China will procure the them to develop military and AI technology.
Kharpal, CNBC:
ASML has not been able to ship an EUV machine to China since 2019 due to various Dutch export restrictions, according to a company spokesperson. But they said that ASML expects “the direct impact of the new export control measures on ASML’s overall 2023 shipment plan to be limited.”
There are currently no EUV systems in China. The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications.
For the rest of Bloomberg’s report, Dutch Resist US Call to Ban More Chip Equipment Sales to China, click here. For Reuter’s G20 update, China's Xi invites Dutch PM for visit, says don't politicise trade, click here. For Kharpal’s CNBC report, A globally critical chip firm is driving a wedge between the U.S. and Netherlands over China tech policy, click here.
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