In the fraught terrain where technology meets geopolitics, journalistic precision is essential.
Recently, Dutch news programs NOS and Nieuwsuur reported that ASML had supplied parts to Chinese customers, including a subsidiary of the state-owned defense conglomerate CETC. Framed as a scoop with geopolitical implications, the story left critical questions unanswered: What parts were delivered? For which systems? Still, the reporters claimed four anonymous experts had confirmed the components were “crucial” to the functioning of ASML’s chipmaking machines. The implication was clear – and weighty – but lacked the technical and factual foundation required for such a charge.
In recent years, ASML has become more than a technological jewel in the Dutch crown. It’s now a strategic pillar in a global power struggle where technology, security and geopolitics are inseparably entangled. That makes the responsibility on journalists reporting in this space all the greater. Not every tip-off or “exclusive” deserves the megaphone of primetime news – not without context, and certainly not without technical clarity. Without that, reportage starts to veer not toward investigative journalism but toward (unintentional) strategic disinformation.
Stripped of concrete facts, the NOS/Nieuwsuur report offered little substance but still served as a launchpad for far-reaching policy speculation. Judith Huismans of RAND Europe, for instance, floated the idea of broad export restrictions on chipmaking parts. Yet, such a measure ignores basic realities: the Dutch government lacks the capacity, expertise and infrastructure to vet the export of every individual component in complex lithography tools. Proposals without a path to implementation only breed policy illusionism – not workable solutions.
Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute also questioned ASML’s judgment in making these deliveries, implying an ethical or political dilemma where there’s merely a business rationale. ASML, like any industrial company, operates under binding contracts and has an interest in maintaining some control over spare parts to ensure quality, reliability and system integrity.
It’s misleading, then, to suggest that delivering replacement parts – even to a Chinese entity – automatically equates to enabling advanced military capabilities. For example, Nieuwsuur insinuated that ASML’s systems are essential to quantum sensor development. However, such applications are based on legacy chip technologies, produced with old tools. If ASML withholds parts, they can often be sourced on the secondary market. If not, other suppliers exist.
What’s most troubling isn’t just what was said, but what wasn’t. The report made no distinction between legacy and leading-edge technology, between strategic and trivial components, between commercial routine and geopolitical theater. In doing so, it constructed a narrative easily weaponized by actors with agendas of their own.
That risk isn’t theoretical. Bloomberg journalist Cagan Koc has previously admitted to me – in a private conversation in The Hague, with another China expert present – that certain ASML stories he published were based on information deliberately leaked to him by the US government. Yet, Dutch media ran with these stories largely uncritically. Now, the same narrative resurfaces, this time timed with the release of a book and again buoyed by a thinly sourced scoop about a supposedly violated gentleman’s agreement.
There’s no basis for assigning special responsibility to ASML in this affair. Export policy is a function of government, not of individual companies. Firms operate within the frameworks imposed on them. To offload that responsibility onto a single company is to let policymakers and politicians dodge their own role – and journalists, in this case, enable that dodge.
In an age when technology is a geopolitical weapon, journalism can’t afford technical laziness or geopolitical naïveté. To float serious accusations without facts, without engineering insight and without regard for global stakes is to undermine not just public discourse but the strategic position of the Netherlands itself.
