In some of its sharpest criticism of Washington’s initiatives to date, China accused the US of “technological terrorism” after the US prevented critical chipmaking technologies from being sold to it by ASML Holding NV and Nikon Corp.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, launched an attack on Washington after Bloomberg News reported that the US is pressuring allies to stop the sale of mainstream technology that is crucial for producing a sizable portion of the world’s chips. This is an expansion of a years-long campaign to stop the country’s rise. Zhao, however, made no mention of whether China has any retaliatory plans in reaction to the action.
Zhao stated that this is just another instance of the US practise of coercive diplomacy by abusing state power and utilising technology hegemony during a regular news briefing on Wednesday in Beijing. It is terrorism using technology as usual. He continued, “This will only serve to remind all countries of the dangers of relying on US technology and encourage them to move more quickly toward independence and self-reliance.”
China’s hopes of overtaking the rest of the world in chip manufacture will be dashed by the proposed limitation, which would increase a current ban on the export of the most cutting-edge systems to China. Additionally, if the Netherlands concurs, it will greatly expand the types and range of chipmaking equipment that are currently prohibited from entering China, dealing a huge setback to Chinese chipmakers like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd.
In addition to this, Washington has gone so far as to put pressure on Japan and the Netherlands to stop supplying chip manufacturing technologies to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. ASML is in competition with Nikon from Japan. Chinese chipmakers have been storing used equipment since the Trump administration, according to Amir Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors, who made the same observation. He continued by saying that prohibiting the most sophisticated tools was “obviously not enough to stop China’s growth in semiconductors, especially when much of the chip technology utilised for defence used geometries that were far less sophisticated.”