The cabinet will impose restrictions on ASML for the export of chip machines to China. This is what Minister of Foreign Trade Liesje Schreinemacher says in a letter to the House of Representatives. In De Telegraaf, the minister calls the decision a ‘matter of national security’.
The cabinet’s plan concerns a general measure to ensure that semiconductors do not end up in high-risk countries, but specifically ASML will be affected by the export control.
ASML was already banned from exporting advanced (EUV) chip machines to China. Now a permit must be applied for for older models, which in principle prevents export to China.
‘Unwanted strategic dependency’
The new regulations should lead to the Netherlands retaining its ‘technological leadership’, the minister also writes in a letter to parliament. In addition, the cabinet also wants to ‘prevent Dutch goods from contributing to undesirable end uses, such as military deployment or in weapons of mass destruction’. The government also hopes to prevent an ‘undesirable strategic dependence’ in the long term.
At the end of January, it was already leaked that the Netherlands, the United States and Japan had reached an agreement on the export restriction of chip technology to China. Washington has already limited its own export of chip technology to China. The Americans also looked at the Netherlands, because ASML is a global leader in the development of chip machines.
The export restriction does not take effect immediately. The cabinet hopes to have introduced the legal measures by the summer.
