A chip manufacture machine Photo: VCG

China has expressed the hope that relevant countries can "distinguish right from wrong" concerning the US government's vicious containment and suppression of China's semiconductor sector, and these countries could take firm measures to resist the US coercion, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday. 

It is hoped that these countries can jointly safeguard open and fair international trade order to protect their own long-term interests, the spokesperson noted.

Lin Jian, the spokesperson, made the remarks in response to a question on a reported plan by the US government to further restrict the trade of semiconductors with China by putting more pressure on other countries such as Japan and the Netherlands, which have significant stakes in the global semiconductor industrial and supply chains.

Lin said that the US has politicized and instrumentalized trade and economic matters, abused the concept of national security, and continued to tighten control over semiconductor exports to China. "China is firmly opposed to such actions," Lin said.

The US is considering imposing tougher semiconductor curbs on China, with the restrictions to affect Japan's Tokyo Electron and ASML, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The US plans to impose controls on foreign-made products that use even the tiniest amount of any US technology, the report said.

Chinese analysts noted on Wednesday that a series of incidents has underscored that when it comes to cracking down on China, the US doesn't give any thought to its allies and pays no heed to their interests.

The US has coerced other countries to join its containment strategy targeting China's semiconductor industry, which has seriously violated international trade norms, undermined the stability of global industrial and supply chains, and caused a situation in which everyone loses, Lin told a routine press conference on Wednesday.

The launch of the US chip war against China plunged the global consumer electronics market into a valley that lasted for as long as four years, Ma Jihua, a veteran telecom industry observer, told the Global Times on Wednesday. "The surge in unpredictability from the US crackdown on China has dented industry confidence and caused a situation in which everyone loses."

Ma warned that more China-bashing rhetoric and curbs may come in this US election year, as US politicians have "lost all reason" when it comes to cracking down on China.

"If the US had succeeded in concentrating the entire chip supply chain on its home soil, which it hadn't, it would have been even more audacious in its chip crackdown on China," Ma said.

On Wednesday, Netherlands-based lithography systems maker ASML released its results for the June quarter. The Chinese mainland remained the largest regional market for ASML in the second quarter, accounting for 49 percent of its total net system sales, unchanged from the first quarter. 

ASML posted net system sales of 4.8 billion euros ($5.25 billion) for the second quarter ended on June 30.

Analysts said that the results underscored the significance of the Chinese market to the Dutch company, which is caught up in Washington's technological crackdown on China.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a phone call with Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp that China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the Netherlands to jointly safeguard the stability of the global industry and supply chains.

Veldkamp said that, in the face of the turbulent international situation, the Dutch side does not support "decoupling" from China and is willing to maintain communications to develop practical bilateral relations.

Washington's reported new curbs follow earlier efforts by the US to intensify regulation on legacy chips made in China, which has met with opposition from industry players.

Almost simultaneously in July, ASML's former and current CEOs voiced concerns about the US crackdown on China. On July 6, former CEO Peter Wennink said in an interview with Dutch radio station BNR that US-China disputes over computer chips are ideological and not based on facts.

In an interview with German business outlet Handelsblatt, published on July 8, current CEO Christophe Fouquet argued that the world needs the legacy chips coming out of China.

Despite US restrictions on exports of advanced products, American chip equipment makers are increasingly dependent on the China market, with exports to China accounting for more than 40 percent of total sales in the first quarter, according to a report by Nikkei Asia.