Dutch Prime Minister Rutte recently paid a working visit to China, but Rutte's visit to China did not change the Dutch strategy of sanctioning China. The Netherlands sanctioned China because the lithography machine giant is headquartered in the Netherlands, and now the Netherlands is a major exporter of lithography machines, lithography machines are important equipment in the chip production process, and are the key to determining the chip level, and the Netherlands has developed and manufactured EUV lithography machines for the production of 2 nanometer processes, thus continuing to monopolize the development and sales of lithography machines for high-end chip production. When the United States blocked China's chip industry, the United States asked the Netherlands to actively cooperate, so there were Dutch export control measures for lithography machines, although the Dutch Prime Minister declared that the Netherlands' export controls were not aimed at a single country, but actually sanctions against China.
According to public data, net profit has fallen by 40% year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter in just three months, and the amount of orders has also declined, reducing by 1 billion euros compared with the expected orders. The sharp decline in the profits of the lithography machine giants has a huge impact on the Dutch government, because it will seriously affect the scale of tax revenue, and it is obvious that the Netherlands has paid a heavy price for sanctions against China, but the Netherlands is still "all the way to the end" and has not given up sanctions against China.
China is the world's largest lithography machine market, and the Dutch lithography machine giants account for 49% of the operating income in China, which shows the important role of the Chinese market for the Dutch lithography machine giants, but the current Dutch government is under the command of the United States and insists on imposing sanctions on China. In fact, the United States is still increasing sanctions against China, and recently US officials have publicly stated that they will force the Netherlands to ban lithography machine giants from providing repair and maintenance services to Chinese customers, so that China can no longer use the lithography equipment exported by the Netherlands, highlighting the sinister intentions of the United States.
Judging from the consistent position of the Netherlands, it will still obey the orders of the United States, which has an agreement with the United States at the beginning of 2023, and is to cooperate with Japan to sanction China's chip industry. From the perspective of the history of scientific and technological development, the Netherlands cannot maintain its technological leadership in the field of lithography machines forever, so the Dutch sanctions against China will not achieve their goals sooner or later, and will backfire on the Netherlands itself, because China will have corresponding lithography machine products sooner or later. Nowadays, China is gradually making breakthroughs in various fields of chips, and the large-scale production of 7-nanometer chips is a concrete signal, and it is obvious that the United States cannot stop China.
In fact, when the United States sanctioned China, there was already a lesson from South Korea, South Korea is also an important exporter of semiconductor production equipment, because the United States asked to sanction China, South Korea obeyed the United States arrangement to prohibit the export of a large number of semiconductor-related equipment to China, so that American manufacturers fell into a passive situation, so when sanctioning China, South Korea has already had a bloody lesson, and now the Netherlands has not learned a lesson. If the Netherlands continues to insist on sanctions against China, the Dutch lithography machine giant will face a huge risk, although the United States is promoting the construction of chip factories, but the United States will not be able to provide enough orders to maintain the operation of lithography machines in the short term.