EU vows to back US in 'depriving' China of most advanced semiconductor chips & technology

The European Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, on Friday, stated that the bloc will back the United States' resolve of choking China's advanced semiconductor chips technology. While making a speech at an event in Washington, Breton stressed that the EU entirely agrees "with the objective of depriving China of the most advanced chips as we cannot allow China to access the most advanced technologies."

The US had earlier passed the multibillion-dollar bill CHIPS and Science Act to manufacture semiconductor chips domestically to curb Chinese exports. The semiconductor chips are a hard-to-make component found in every modern machinery and component, including defense weaponry. The Biden administration inked an agreement with the Netherlands and its steadfast Asian ally Japan to ban chip exports to China escalating a global trade conflict. The European Union trade official on January 27 reaffirmed the bloc's "full commitment" to disrupting the semiconductor industry of Beijing. 

“We fully agree with the objective of depriving China of the most advanced chips," EU’s internal-market commissioner, Thierry Breton, said in a speech made at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies forum. 

“We cannot allow China to access the most advanced technologies," he furthermore stressed. 

Biden pressurizing Europe to ban Chinese manufactured chips

Talks with Tokyo and Stockholm to cut Beijing's ambition of expanding its own domestic chipmaking machinery concluded this week, on Friday, reports suggest. The deal is the extension of the export controls adopted by Washington in October for the allied countries' firms namely—ASML Holding NV, Nikon Corp, and Tokyo Electron Ltd—to undercut China's high-end semiconductor and chip-making technologies.

Biden has been pressurising Europe to ban Chinese-manufactured semiconductor chips. Dutch trade minister Liesje Schreinemacher, at a presser, reaffirmed cooperation with the United States but added that his country will not immediately comply with the restrictive measure. The Dutch government, he noted, is in consultation with its Asian and EU allies, Schreinemacher outlined. It could take several months for the European nations to finalize legal arrangements with the United States. 

“Talks are ongoing, for a long time already, but we don’t communicate about this. And if something would come out of this, it is questionable if this will be made very visible,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte maintained during an address in The Hague, when asked by a reporter about his plans. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry had previously slammed the United States for its moves to ban the semiconductor chips exports, saying that it has strong geopolitical overtones. Wang Wenbin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, maintained that the new US CHIPS Act has loopholes in its provisions that will disrupt Chinese-US scientific and technological cooperation. Biden administration said that the chips ban is critical for its own national security, competing with China, and reducing the United States' reliance on Taiwan and South Korea for critical technologies.