A look at Eindhoven, a small, low-rise Dutch city home to ASML, chipmaker NXP, and other tech companies, which was a focus as the US prepared to restrict China
Andy Bounds / Financial Times : Tweets: @valentinapop Tweets: Valentina Pop / @valentinapop : Washington's efforts to block China's access to high-end technology homed in on just two places outside the US: Tokyo and Eindhoven. @AndyBounds reports from the small Dutch city that is home to ASML https://www.ft.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Eindhoven's outsized role in Washington's export-control map traces back to ASML's monopoly position: its $150M+ EUV machines, sold to TSMC and peers, are the only route to leading-edge chipmaking, which is why the city sits alongside Tokyo as one of just two places outside the US that ASML's EUV dominance put in the crosshairs.
The Dutch government has since walked a tightrope — crafting sanctions that stopped short of Biden's 2022 rules, then reportedly letting ASML keep exporting to China after lobbying to offset weak demand elsewhere — while US scrutiny has widened beyond machines to people, reaching ASML-funded Eindhoven University's admission of Chinese students.
First-order effects
- ASML and NXP now operate under direct Washington oversight: export licenses, customer screening, and questions about who can study and work inside their home-city ecosystem.
- The Dutch government is forced to arbitrate between alliance commitments and the tax and employment base of a city whose largest employers depend on China sales.
Second-order effects
- Every tightening in The Hague pushes ASML toward the pattern already visible in the post-deal lobbying that kept China shipments flowing — revenue preservation quietly shaping enforcement, which in turn erodes the credibility of the restriction regime Washington is building.
- Europe hedges by building independent capacity: the €2.5B Belgian chips hub inaugurated with ASML and Imec explicitly framed European chip technology as something the US depends on, converting chokepoint status into negotiating leverage.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, national security policy will be administered at the level of single cities and campuses rather than countries — Eindhoven University's Chinese-student questioning shows personnel flows becoming an extension of export control.
- Chokepoint geography gives small states structural bargaining power: the Netherlands' ability to soften rules it nominally accepted suggests allied export-control regimes will be bargained down wherever irreplaceable suppliers sit.
The trend: Great-power technology competition is increasingly fought through narrow physical chokepoints — single cities like Eindhoven and single suppliers like ASML — where allied governments must choose between enforcing US-aligned controls and protecting domestic champions.