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News > Netherlands

Netherlands Limits Sale of Chip Making Machines to China

  • Under the agreement reached, which also involves Japan, the US will extend its export controls to companies based in the two allied nations. Jan. 28, 2023.

    Under the agreement reached, which also involves Japan, the US will extend its export controls to companies based in the two allied nations. Jan. 28, 2023. | Photo: AP

Published 28 January 2023
Opinion

Washington pressured and reached an agreement with Amsterdam to restrict exports of chip-making machinery to China.

The news comes a week after the Dutch Trade Minister announced her attachment to the principle of "free trade" and that she would not give in to U.S pressure.

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Under the agreement reached, which also involves Japan, the US will extend its export controls to companies based in the two allied nations, such as ASML Holding NV, Nikon Corp and Tokyo Electron Ltd, the Bloomberg report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

This will prevent them from selling China so-called deep ultraviolet lithography machines, crucial for making some types of advanced chips and without which Beijing's attempts to launch production will be severely limited.

A day earlier, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that Dutch and Japanese officials would meet with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to discuss the issue. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands himself, Mark Rutte, was quite reserved on the subject.

"Talks have been going on for a long time, but we won't expand on this. And if anything would come out of this, it is questionable if it would be made public," Rutte assured last Friday, January 27, in response to a question about the talks.

Bloomberg's publication comes a week after the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Trade and Cooperation, Liesje Schreinemacher, announced during the Davos Forum that her country will follow the principle of free trade with China and would not give in to pressure from the US.

"You can't say they have been pressuring us for two years and now we have to sign on the dotted line. And we won't do it," he assured on national television.

The Dutch government, however, had already denied ASML Holding NV permission to ship its most advanced machines to China from 2019, following a pressure campaign by the Trump Administration, but the company did sell older machines worth €2 billion to Beijing in 2021.

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