30-6-2023 (WASHINGTON) The US and the Netherlands are reportedly set to further curb sales of chipmaking equipment to China, including some from Dutch firm ASML, the global leader in lithography. The move is part of the ongoing US-China tensions over semiconductors, which began with the Trump administration’s trade war and have continued under President Joe Biden’s leadership. The US is seeking to undercut Beijing’s efforts to build its high-tech industry.
Here is a timeline of US actions against China’s chip industry:
October 2018: The Trump administration cut off Chinese chipmaker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit from its US suppliers after the US Justice Department indicted the state-backed firm for stealing trade secrets.
January 2020: Reuters reported that the Trump administration had mounted an extensive campaign since 2018 to block the sale of Dutch chip manufacturing technology to China, resulting in ASML being unable to sell its most advanced lithography machine to a Chinese customer.
May 2020: The Trump administration blocked shipments of semiconductors to China’s Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, crippling its HiSilicon chip and smartphone divisions.
December 2020: The US added China’s top chipmaker SMIC and dozens of other Chinese firms to a trade blacklist and said it would deny licenses to prevent SMIC from acquiring technology to produce semiconductors at advanced technology levels of 10 nanometres or below.
September 2022: US chip designers Nvidia and Advanced Micron Devices said US officials told them to stop exporting some top computing chips for artificial intelligence work to China.
October 2022: The Biden administration published a sweeping set of export controls, including a measure to cut China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with US equipment.
December 2022: The US added Chinese memory chip maker YMTC and dozens of other Chinese firms to its trade blacklist.
June 29, 2023: Reuters reported that the Netherlands is planning to further curb sales of certain ASML equipment to China’s chipmakers this summer. The US is expected to go one step further and withhold even more Dutch equipment from specific Chinese fabrication plants.
US officials are also considering tightening an export control rule designed to slow the flow of AI semiconductors to China by clamping down on the amount of computing power the chips can have, according to a separate report citing sources.
