China said Thursday it “firmly opposes” a decision by the Netherlands to implement new restrictions on the export of semiconductor production equipment, calling it the result of “bullying and hegemony” by the West.
The Netherlands, Europe’s premier maker of the machines used to manufacture microchips, has been pushed by Washington to impose curbs similar to those announced by US authorities last year.
The export curb, revealed in a letter by Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher in a letter to parliament on Wednesday, comes less than two months after the country’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte discussed the issue with US President Joe Biden during a visit to Washington.
Chinese foreign spokesperson told a press briefing Thursday that “a certain country has overextended the concept of national security, politicising and instrumentalising economic, trade and technological issues” in recent years — an apparent reference to the US.
This is done “in order to deprive China of its development rights and maintain its own hegemony”, she said.
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