The Dutch government is to put restrictions on the country’s “most advanced” microchip technology exports to protect national security, following a similar move by the US. It will include products by chip equipment maker ASML, a key firm in the global microchip supply chain. In response, China has launched a formal complaint against the move. It said it hoped the Netherlands would not “follow the abuse of export control measures by certain countries”. China has frequently called the US a “tech hegemony” in response to export controls imposed by Washington. Semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones to military hardware, are at the centre of a bitter dispute between the US and China. A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, said the Dutch move aimed to deprive China of its right to develop. Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank, told the BBC that the decision by the Netherlands was “a real step forward, a real victory for the US and also very bad news for China”. “US-China relations are already in a pretty bad place. This clearly will make things even worse.”(BBC)…[+]