They should know that their technology would likely support China’s economy, military, and the resulting hubris that fuels Beijing’s human rights abuse and militarism.
The Dutch technology could not only be used in China’s weaponry, but in broad economic activities that ultimately support Beijing’s military aggression against U.S. partners in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan, Taiwan, and Australia.
As the regime in China is a supporter of Russia, Iran, and North Korea, the Dutch technology mediately supports those countries’ aggression against U.S. forces in Syria, as well as against Ukraine and South Korea.
The Netherlands and its company, called ASML, are thus putting U.S. national security, not to mention the stability of multiple global hotspots, at risk. They ignore the most basic values of human rights and democracy in their myopic pursuit of short-term profits and the narrowest of national interests.
If ASML insists on selling its technology to China, the United States, European Union, and our allies should, at minimum, ban ASML products from all government-funded products, industrial processes, tariff protections, and subsidies. Why patronize and support a company that trades with the enemy?
The government of the Netherlands is, for this and other reasons, being penny-wise and, in expectation, pound-foolish. It apparently thinks that immaterial ASML profits in China are more important than its good reputation, or the lives of Taiwanese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong adherents—all of whom are under threat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and none of whom have sufficient support from the international community that supposedly supports peace and human rights.
The latter two groups are facing human rights abuse that amounts to genocide by the U.N. definition. Taiwan is facing the risk of a Ukraine-style war that has already caused 200,000 casualties on both sides in Europe. Tibet has long been under the heel of Beijing and is all but forgotten by the world.
Asia and North America are in a costly arms race because of the CCP’s aggression. ASML’s $2 billion in revenue is obviously not worth the known costs, much less the existential risks from war.
The stock of ASML is publicly traded on global markets, so a minuscule perturbation in its profits should not be of great concern to the Netherlands. ASML’s 32,000 employees will be more important to Amsterdam, though many work outside of the Netherlands itself.
As the world decouples from China due to the CCP’s aggression, ASML should shut all its operations in China or face increased global opprobrium, sanctions, and tariffs.
The CCP’s human rights abuse and support for global human rights abusers should make it obvious to all but the most ethically challenged that the Netherlands and ASML should stop supporting China with high technology. For example, there is a direct link between silicon production in Xinjiang, which by law is assumed to use forced labor, and the silicon chips that ASML machines enable.
Netherlands and ASML can be sanctioned in democracies that value human rights, peace, and democracy above profits and take national security seriously.
Failure to comply with not only the letter, but the spirit of sanctions must entail consequences or remain toothless. The consequences should include an attempt to impose Magnitsky sanctions on the CEO of ASML. If ASML’s CEO cannot be sanctioned according to existing Magnitsky laws, they can be revised to achieve this aim.
Sanctions can spread from the CEO, if he refuses to comply, to all of ASML, and finally to the Netherlands as a country.
Laws could be passed to delist ASML from U.S. and allied stock exchanges.
The Dutch economy can be sanctioned or tariffed at higher rates until it joins more responsible democracies in ensuring that their corporations follow basic environmental, human rights, and political stability measures that should prioritize an end to enabling the regime in Beijing. It must be remembered that communist China is the world’s biggest source of pollution, human rights abuse, and militarism.
It makes no sense that a single Dutch company can hold all of democracy ransom with its single-minded pursuit of profit. The rest of the world should never accept such greed and can effectively work against it with retaliatory sanctions, as well as economic and trade measures.
