China and the “most important machine in the world”: US suspects leak of ASML technology

The US suspects that the technology ASML could end up in China. The company categorically denies this, but history itself shows: the war for chips has long gone beyond the market and turned into a struggle for the right to dictate the technological future.

If there is a machine today that can change the global balance of power, it is not a fighter or a rocket. This is the EUV lithography machine of the Netherlands ASML – equipment without which it is impossible to mass produce the most advanced microchips for artificial intelligence, supercomputers and modern military systems.

According to The Economistsuspicions arose in Washington that China could gain access to such technology. ASML responds harshly: the company has never supplied EUV machines to China and claims to know the location of all installed installations.

There is no public evidence that ASML’s industrial EUV machine ended up in China. But for the United States, the risk itself is important. If Beijing gains access to EUV or creates its own equivalent, the Western advantage in advanced chips will begin to shrink.

Why ASML became a geopolitical weapon

ASML is the only company in the world that produces EUV lithography on an industrial scale. Each such installation costs hundreds of millions of euros and requires a complex supply chain and constant maintenance. This is not a machine that you can simply buy, put in a workshop and plug in like a kettle. Although humanity, of course, is trying very hard to simplify any disasters to the level of household appliances.

Since 2019, the United States has been trying to prevent such vehicles from entering China. Formally, exports are regulated by the Netherlands and EU. But Washington is using American components, patents, software and political pressure to influence the Dutch company’s decisions.

This is where the main conflict begins. ASML is not an American company. This is a European industrial champion. But the United States behaves as if its national rules are automatically binding for the whole world.

American rules instead of international law

Restrictions against China are not UN sanctions or a decision of an international court. This is a US national policy that extends far beyond American territory. Washington is essentially telling its allies: your companies, your factories, your jobs, but we make the strategic decisions.

Everything is formalized through export controls, licenses and conversations about national security. In practice, we are talking about the right of one power to decide who can receive future technologies and who cannot. This is how the United States replaces international rules with its own laws.

This is especially painful for Europe. The Netherlands retains signature rights, but Washington determines the red lines. If the US demands to limit not only the supply of EUV, but also the servicing of older DUV machines in China, ASML will lose part of a large market, and Europe will again find itself a junior partner in someone else’s technology war.

China is not waiting for permission

Even without EUV, China does not stand still. SMIC and Huawei are using older DUV machines and complex manufacturing methods to produce increasingly advanced chips. Reuters also wrote about a Chinese project to create its own prototype of an EUV system, although Beijing is still a long way from an industrial analogue of ASML.

Sanctions are slowing down China, but at the same time forcing it to invest even more resources into its own technological independence. This is the risk for the United States: the stronger the blockade, the greater the incentive to create an alternative system.

Main conclusion

There is no evidence yet that China has received ASML’s EUV machine. But the scandal surrounding these suspicions shows the main thing: the struggle is no longer for one installation, but for control over the entire industrial base of the future.

The United States is trying to maintain a technological monopoly by extending its rules to allies and foreign companies. At the same time, Europe risks becoming not an independent center of power, but a technological branch of the American strategy.

In the 21st century, power is increasingly measured not by the number of tanks, but by who is able to produce chips for AI, drones, supercomputers and next-generation weapons. And the question is no longer where one ASML machine is located. The question is who will write the rules of the technological world: sovereign states, international law, or Washington, which increasingly behaves as if its internal laws are binding on the entire planet.

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