Dutch Semiconductor Export Controls Spark Tension with China, Could Reflect Badly on Cooperation

[AleksandarK]

The Netherlands government announced additional export controls on advanced chipmaking equipment on Friday. This decision, which specifically targets ASML's DUV immersion lithography tools, has drawn sharp criticism from Beijing. The new regulations, aligning with similar restrictions imposed by the US last year, will require additional licensing for the export of ASML's 1970i and 1980i models. China's Commerce Ministry swiftly responded to the announcement, expressing dissatisfaction with what it perceives as unwarranted restrictions on trade. In a statement released Sunday, the ministry accused the United States of leveraging its global influence to pressure allies into tightening export controls, describing it as an attempt to maintain "global hegemony" in the semiconductor industry.

The Chinese government urged the Netherlands to reconsider its position, calling for a balance between security concerns and the preservation of mutually beneficial economic ties. Beijing emphasized the importance of safeguarding the "common interests" of businesses in both countries and warned against potential damage to Sino-Dutch cooperation in the semiconductor sector. Dutch Trade Minister Reinette Klever defended the decision, stating it was made "for our safety." However, this move could have significant implications for ASML, which has already faced restrictions on exporting its most advanced systems to China. ASML receives as much as 49% of its revenue from China, meaning that additional export regulations could significantly reduce revenues if licenses aren't approved.



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[bug]

It's just smoke and mirrors, ASML is full of Chinese employees that tend to vanish after they advance to more prominent positions. You can guess where they go.

 

[JohH]

It is warranted because they have copied machinery without a license. They even say it is a national priority to produce their own lithography machines. Why sell them the state-of-the-art which they will copy and export at a lower cost in the long term?

Also LMAO the communist party talking about "unwarranted" restrictions on trade when they have re-education camps for Turkic Muslims.

 

[kondamin]

It is warranted because they have copied machinery without a license. They even say it is a national priority to produce their own lithography machines. Why sell them the state-of-the-art which they will copy and export at a lower cost in the long term?

Also LMAO the communist party talking about "unwarranted" restrictions on trade when they have re-education camps for Turkic Muslims.

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.


*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

 

[bug]

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.


*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

When it comes to semis, people tend to think CPUs, GPUs, NAND... The thing is, semis also go into radars, missile guidance systems and whatnot. There is a lot at stake, depending on whether you have the know-how or not.

 

[kondamin]

When it comes to semis, people tend to think CPUs, GPUs, NAND... The thing is, semis also go into radars, missile guidance systems and whatnot. There is a lot at stake, depending on whether you have the know-how or not.

Don't know if the latest and greatest is needed for missiles, they have been lobbing missiles with guidance systems for well over 50 years now, as long as these weapon systems don't have to make their or Targetting decisions >14nm seems to be working fine for Nations like Iran and Russia.
Never mind the fact that per year more than 60 million shipping containers enter US ports and hardly any of them get checked, no need for a guidance system if you can have UPS fill a warehouse full of Lithium containers and a small thermonuclear device.

I think it's more of an economics thing, if you can run simulations faster you can act faster
if you can include more parameters your simulations will deliver more realistic results
If your AI is bigger and faster it should work better.

The rest, considering the power needed for something relatively simple like self driving, I strongly doubt we'll be hiding from Terminator androids in the next dozen or so node shrinks

 

[R0H1T]

The thing is, semis also go into radars, missile guidance systems and whatnot. There is a lot at stake, depending on whether you have the know-how or not.

You need reliability more than state-of-the art 256c/512t chips for weapons systems, I doubt anyone would be fretting over installing a Penryn(?) level CPU on 45nm into any of them!

 

[evernessince]

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.

BRICS has three primary members: China, Russia, and India. India and China don't like each other and Russia is a dictatorship who's economy is currently extremely shaky. China has been cutting transactions to Russian banks under threat of recently added secondary sanctions. As a result Russia has a massive liquidity shortfall because Russia was doing a lot of it's business in Yuan (because no one wants to be paid in rubles).

I don't see china siding with BRICs over say it's own interests. China could restrict battery and battery material exports but then China would have to deal with retaliatory action. China is a huge exporter and it imports a lot of food as well. We already know what happens when sanctions or fees are placed on Chinese goods, that low cost manufacturing simply moves to another 3rd world country and China never gets that business back again. While china could somewhat disrupt the rest of the world's transition to EV, there are other battery chemistries that can get around a China led trade war. Mind you China would be harming itself as it has been exporting a growing number of EVs. Without a doubt other countries would relatiate by placing tarrifs or sanctions on Chinese EV exports and that would completely cripple one of their emerging international industries. China imports 2.7 trillion dollars worth of goods every year so they have signfiicant expsoure, particular in regards to semi-conductors and machinery which represents 658 Billion of that.

*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

Well duh.

 

[bug]

Don't know if the latest and greatest is needed for missiles, they have been lobbing missiles with guidance systems for well over 50 years now, as long as these weapon systems don't have to make their or Targetting decisions >14nm seems to be working fine for Nations like Iran and Russia.

You need reliability more than state-of-the art 256c/512t chips for weapons systems, I doubt anyone would be fretting over installing a Penryn(?) level CPU on 45nm into any of them!

It's more about sensors...

 

[cellar door]

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.


*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

Brics is hollow, a distraction - China wont cut anyone off, they have major supply agreements with international conglomerates, and they rely on the cash flow too much. The growth must continue. The above take is not based in reality more like reddit. Add to that that India is quickly coming online as an alternative cheap labor location, also Vietnam for manufacturing. Then you got the real-estate economy that is in tatters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis_(2020–present)

All that is shiny, is not always gold..

 

[kondamin]

Brics is hollow, a distraction - China wont cut anyone off, they have major supply agreements with international conglomerates, and they rely on the cash flow too much. The growth must continue. The above take is not based in reality more like reddit. Add to that that India is quickly coming online as an alternative cheap labor location, also Vietnam for manufacturing. Then you got the real-estate economy that is in tatters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis_(2020–present)

All that is shiny, is not always gold..

every year more trade is directly done in yuan brics and the belt and road are part of that plan to get out from under the dollar and it’s rules.

yes China has a massive realestate problem, they are going through some serious deflationary pains most of those are due to the supply shock following the insanity that was the pandemic and how the world dealt with that and the real estate problem that has workers sit at home without construction jobs drying up internal consumption.

and fyi China isn’t the only one with a serious real estate issue, ours just hasn’t popped yet

 

[ADB1979]

Excellent news from the Netherlands government, rare that I should say such a thing, but bravo, and next up, total ban to CCP or their allies (who will just ship it to them anyway) who will then dissemble it to the minutiae and replicate it, or something new with everything they learn from it's disassembly.!

This is how they operate, they copy and steal to get ahead rather than creating anew by themselves, that and they are a massive clear and present danger to the rest of the World, so I would personally (if I had the power obviously) ban the sale or distribution of anything technologically advanced to the CCP or their allies. Feeding the Crocodile will simply get you eaten last, thankfully the Netherlands government has at least a little sense.!

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.


*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

This was literally political from the OP which is about a political decision, thus we are allowed to chat about politics (to some degree) on TPU, within this thread at least.

As for political opinions, we all have them, some strong, some weak, some loud, some silent, and I would go further and say that there is not a person alive who does not have some political views because politics effects literally every aspect of life for us all, in recent years more have come to realise this and therefore more have become vocal or louder than they were 20-30 years ago.

IMHO this is primarily because we all now have modern communications upon us or near us all of the time and have access to a vast amount of information, THIS alone has engaged people with politics in ways that people had not been engaged before, and now in places just like this thread, people are discussing political things that may not even directly effect them because people now realise how international politics now is in the way that it directly effects our lives, such as the CCP stealing everything they possibly can at the direct detriment to everyone on Earth except the CCP and their allies, thus this decision is a meaningful international one that effects us all.

They are WTO members and that club has rules so yes they can complain, it's one of the big reasons China hasn't hit back in a serious manner with sanctions of it's own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China were to leave the WTO as more nations are signing up to BRICS with it's own rules so they can completely cut someone off from say batteries and solar inverters in retaliation.


*This is a bad topic for TPU, as it will devolve in to politics and I have opinions...

Also, the WTO in some regards rule the Earth, they make big descisions such as the Net 2030 thing, and then over the next few years various countries start to sign up to it (some 2050+ because it doesn't sell, then edge it sooner), this is not the only example.

I would personally withdraw from the WHO, and the UK and all of their associated bodies if I had the power to do so, they are insidious, and corrupt, and are trying to be more powerful than the Nation State itself.!!! Nope, no One World Government on my watch...

When it comes to semis, people tend to think CPUs, GPUs, NAND... The thing is, semis also go into radars, missile guidance systems and whatnot. There is a lot at stake, depending on whether you have the know-how or not.

The controllers for and the suicide drones, the grenade dropping drones, etc. The CCP is no doubt building thousands of these things considering how their use has been demonstrated in / by Yemen, Iran, turkey, Ukraine (multiple manufacturers, multiple countries including Turkey until Russia complained and they stopped), Russia (Multiple countries including China), China.

Drone warfare and other new recent developments in the art of war is being pursued heavily by the CCP (and everyone else who is sensible). People should note that in the decade before the 2022 Ukraine/Russia war, the CCP was outspending Russia by 3x per year on military. The "news" never talks about this, only Russian military, not the one that dwarfs it (yes the CCP could invade and win a war against Russia if nukes were not a thing) and the "news" never tells Average Joe these things, or much else...

Anyway, I GTG otherwise I wont stop....