AMSTERDAM — The recently retired chief executive officer of semiconductor equipment maker ASML said in an interview with Dutch radio station BNR on Saturday that US-China disputes over computer chips are ideological and not based on facts, and they are set to continue.
Wennink left in April after a 10-year at the helm of ASML that saw it become Europe’s largest technology firm.
Since 2018, the US has imposed increasing restrictions on what tools the company can export to China, its second-largest market after Taiwan, citing security concerns.
Peter Wennink, president and CEO of Dutch chip machine maker ASML, presents his company’s fourth results in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on Jan. 24, 2024. REUTERS PHOTO
Most recently, the US has sought to keep the company from servicing equipment already sold to Chinese customers.
“This kind of discussions are not being conducted on the basis of facts or content or numbers or data but on the basis of ideology,” Wennink said.
“You can think whatever you want about that, but we’re a business where the interests of your stakeholders have to be managed in balance … If ideology cuts straight through that, I have problems with that.”
He said the company has had customers and staff in China for 30 years, “so you also have obligations.”
As part of seeking to strike a balance, Wennink said he had lobbied where possible to prevent export restrictions from becoming too tight, and, at the same time, he had complained to high-ranking Chinese politicians when he felt the company’s intellectual property wasn’t being respected.
“I think in Washington, maybe they sometimes thought that Mr. Wennink, maybe he’s a friend of China,” he said.
“No. I’m a friend to my customers, to my suppliers, to my employees, to my shareholders.”
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