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 is not 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.
This wasn’t the first time partial information was presented as a scoop in a way that framed ASML’s role as decisive in Chinese technological developments, while in reality, it’s a combination of factors. The Bloomberg article from 25 October 2023, “Controversial chip in Huawei phone produced on ASML machine,” is another clear example. The title and the introductory paragraph suggest that it was a revelation that the advanced chip in the newest Huawei phone was made on an older machine from ASML. The authors of the article linked this ‘revelation’ immediately to the question if the export restrictions on ASML machines may have come too late.
The focus on the role of older DUV machines from ASML played right into the agenda of the US government, which had just implemented new measures to overrule the latest Dutch export restrictions from June that year. In June 2023, The Hague decided that ASML needed licenses for the export of its most advanced DUV machines to China. Washington wasn’t amused that the Dutch didn’t follow its advice/demand to also include older DUV and then chose to impose stricter rules on ASML by changing its de minimis rule (that grants the US long-arm authority over any product from a non-American company if the product contains at least 25 percent American technology) to 0 percent for the occasion. This change effectively asserted that even if no obvious US linkage exists via a person, technology, product or service, the US nonetheless “retains jurisdiction over such foreign-made equipment to protect US national security and foreign-policy interests.”
The real scoop, however, was that SMIC was able to make the advanced chips on older DUV machines from ASML with the help of highly advanced American etching technology. That would have made headlines as well: “Controversial chip in Huawei phone produced with the help of American tech.” For insiders in the semicon industry, it was already clear in at least 2022 (when Dutch companies demanded the US government also include advanced etching technology in its export measures) that Chinese companies could use advanced American etching technology to make advanced chips with older lithography technology. In other words, that information was available at the time of the Bloomberg 25 October 2023 article.
The choice to focus on the role of older ASML machines in this process, while the Dutch government still had to officially decide whether or not to accept these extra-territorial sanctions from the US or invoke the EU anti-coercion instrument, should have been met with more suspicion by Dutch journalists. Instead, Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad copied part of the Bloomberg article almost word-for-word, including the headline.
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.
