Assessing Dutch agency within the Chip War rivalry : the case of ASML in a changing geopolitical world

Abstract

The paper analyzes the conditions the Netherlands had to consider when it decided to restrict critical semiconductor manufacturing equipment – ASML’s EUV and DUV machines- to China. This has largely been left unexplored within in the current literature. The paper therefore explores how the Netherlands is navigating the Chip War held between the United States and China. By conducting document analysis on the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ 2019 China Strategy, ASML’s yearly net sales, and analyzing the change in political landscape that has gradually intensified since 2018, this paper finds that the Netherlands decided to place export restrictions on China due to geopolitical and geoeconomic strategies becoming a primary policy consideration in critical industries such as semiconductors.