The US seeks to deny China, which is the largest single market for semiconductors, advanced chip technology so that Beijing does not end up using it to boost its technological and military power.
Japan and the Netherlands are on course to finalizing stringent export controls that would aim at crippling the Chinese semiconductor industry, which is reeling from the control measures the US unveiled last year.
Bloomberg reported that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte held discussions with US President Joe Biden at the White House earlier this month on the controls on the Chinese chip industry. The measures are likely to be finalized by the end of January, the report said.
While Netherlands company ASML Holding NV controls the market for lithography technology, Tokyo Electron Ltd. rivals US companies that are key players in the chip industry.
“Without access to their state-of-the-art products and those supplied by US firms Applied Materials Inc., Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp., Chinese companies would find it almost impossible to build production lines capable of the most advanced chip manufacturing, analysts say,” the report said.
In October last year, the Biden administration tightened the screws on the Chinese chipmakers by enforcing more export controls targeting them. The move sought to stop not just American companies from selling key equipment and technology to China but persuade foreign firms to do so.
The measures unveiled by President Joe Biden were aimed at closing China out of manufacturing some key semiconductor chips.
