It’s Europe’s most valuable tech company and business is booming – ASML expanded its headcount by nearly a third in 2022 – but political pressure from the US to restrict exports to China threatens to disrupt the semiconductor landscape. BBC World Service talks to HCSS strategic analyst Joris Teer about the geopolitical bind the Dutch technology giant finds itself in.
In a dedicated episode of BBC Business Daily, Matthew Kenyon explores ASML – the company which makes the most advanced machines used in the manufacturing of microchips – its role in the global microchip industry and why that role has become very politically sensitive, as it finds itself squeezed in the contest between the two strongest powers on the planet, China and the United States.
“I’m convinced that the Americans are almost all-in,”
Joris Teer, strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
How serious is the US in restricting or reducing China’s current access to the technology that ASML produces? “I’m convinced that the Americans are almost all-in,” says strategic analyst Joris Teer, whose work at Dutch thinktank The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) focusses on anything China-related, from military development to the semiconductor industry.
“The US national security advisor has basically stated that since the Ukraine war, but also with tensions building between China and the US, the US have moved their goals from having a couple of generations of an advantage in foundational technologies vis-à-vis their rivals, to ‘we must maintain as large a lead as possible’ – which can also mean you must put your rivals back as far as possible.”
And that means preventing their rivals – in this case China of course – from developing the tools needed to enhance military artificial intelligence applications for instance. It means that ASML has found itself the subject of some very intense diplomacy.
Teer: “When the Dutch government was in the process of withholding the export license for the highest degree of technology of ASML EUV machinery, the Chinese ambassador said ‘we would not like the Netherlands to break under US pressure,’ basically saying that it would of course negatively effect China-Netherlands relations. That already put us in sort of a bind there. But two days later, the American ambassador in the Netherlands said ‘We’ve made it very clear to the Dutch, we believe this kind of sensitive technology doesn’t belong in certain places.’ There are few examples that more concretely show the binds that a small and midsized ally of the United States that does a lot of business with China can get into. ”
“There are few examples that more concretely show the binds that a small and midsized ally of the United States that does a lot of business with China can get into.”
Joris Teer, strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS)
You can listen to the full episode on ASML innovation, its role in the supply chain and concerns about the semicon global ecosystem of BBC’s Business Daily with Matthew Kenyon on the BBC website.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct312z
The episode is also available though Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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