China blames U.S. for ASML license revocation, urging fairness

China blamed the U.S. for pushing the Dutch government to revoke chip-making equipment manufacturer ASML's license to export lithography systems to China.

"We have been opposing the U.S. behavior of coercing other countries with various pretenses and forcing them to block China in sci-tech fields," said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at a press briefing on Tuesday. "The semiconductor industry is global. The U.S. bullying has severe impact on the stability of chip industry chain and will backfire."

Wang also said China urged the Netherlands to respect the spirit of a contract and take practical measures to safeguard the interest of enterprises in both countries.

China will resolutely protect its own lawful rights, Wang added.

Lithography system

Lithography system is a machine that uses lasers to print circuits on a chip and is critical in the making of high-end chips like Qualcomm Snapdragon series and Intel Core series.

ASML is a global leader in such machines, supplying cutting-edge technology to big industrial names like Intel and Samsung.

China has been ASML's third largest market in recent years behind the country's Taiwan region and South Korea.

"In recent discussions with the U.S. government, ASML has obtained further clarification of the scope and impact of the US export control regulations," ASML said in a statement.

The U.S. has been trying to unfairly block China from accessing latest chip-making technology in order to stop China from becoming a global chip powerhouse.

But the revoked license is not for most advanced machines, but rather for products like NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i. These two machines are not designed to build chips as dense as Intel Core Ultra or Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.