The topic will be part of broader security discussions Biden will hold with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday, followed by his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans.
Japan and the Netherlands agreed in principle to mirror some of the strict export limits imposed by the Biden administration, Bloomberg News reported last month. However, no announcement on any tech agreement will come during the visits, the person said.
Washington in October announced restrictions on the export of key technology to China aimed at debilitating its efforts to develop its own semiconductor supply chain, part of the broader US efforts to manage China’s strategic competition.
There are five key companies that make the equipment necessary to produce advanced semiconductors, including Applied Materials Inc., KLA Corp. and Lam Research Corp., which were covered directly by the Biden administration restrictions because they’re American firms. The other major players are the Netherlands’ ASML Holding NV and Japan’s Tokyo Electron Ltd.
That makes cooperation from Tokyo and The Hague critical to the Biden administration’s efforts to limit China’s development of its own domestic semiconductor capabilities. A full three-country alliance would create a near-total blockade of China’s access to the equipment necessary to make leading-edge chips.
China has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the US export controls. Beijing said the restrictions threaten the stability of the global supply chain and that America’s national-security justification is dubious.There isn’t an expectation from the parties involved that any arrangement on the tech restrictions would be announced together, people familiar with the matter said.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Thursday that Biden and Rutte will discuss support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and “cooperation going forward on critical technologies.”
