CHINA called on the Netherlands to respect the law, the business environment and the stability of its and China’s markets, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry said yesterday.

The spokesperson was responding to a question about the European country partially revoking chip-equipment maker ASML’s export license for the shipment of some lithography systems, which are essential to making advanced microprocessors, to China.

The Dutch firm said Monday that the Dutch government recently partially revoked an export license for shipping the NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i lithography systems to China in 2023.

Dutch semiconductor companies have had to seek government permission since September before they can sell some advanced types of chip-making equipment abroad, the Dutch government said in June.

The rule came after national security officials from the Netherlands, Japan and the United States reached an agreement to start restricting such exports, aiming at limiting China’s access to advanced semiconductor technologies.

Bloomberg yesterday quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that ASML canceled shipments of some of its machines to China at the request of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration.

ASML had licenses to ship three top-of-the-line deep ultraviolet lithography machines to Chinese firms until January when new Dutch restrictions take full effect.

However, U.S. officials reached out to ASML to ask them to immediately halt pre-scheduled shipments of some of the machines to Chinese customers, according to people familiar with the matter.

(SD-Agencies)