What Western Headlines Get Wrong About China’s “Bypass” of Chip Export Controls
by Jaffa Levy
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Western reporting now claims that Chinese chipmakers are upgrading restricted ASML equipment to bypass export controls and produce advanced AI chips. That narrative has travelled faster than the evidence. This article separates what can be established from Chinese and Taiwanese sources from what remains allegation.
Since 2022, export controls imposed by the United States and its allies have aimed to restrict China’s access to the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools. The focal point has been extreme ultraviolet lithography, produced exclusively by ASML in the Netherlands. Without EUV, advanced nodes become harder, slower, and more expensive to reach.
But the global control regime does not prohibit all semiconductor equipment. Older deep ultraviolet immersion tools were delivered to Chinese fabs before restrictions tightened. Those machines remain installed, operational, and lawfully owned. From that moment, the policy problem changes. Controls can block new sales. They struggle to govern what happens next.
What Taiwanese and Chinese sources actually confirm
Taiwanese semiconductor media have for years described the fallback pathway available when EUV is denied. It is not mysterious. It is multi patterning using DUV immersion tools. This method relies on repeated exposures to define features below the native resolution of the machine. It is inefficient. It reduces yield. It raises cost. But it works.
What multi patterning actually means
Multi patterning uses multiple DUV exposures to define smaller features. Each added step compounds alignment risk and reduces throughput. The technique trades speed and cost for incremental capability. Taiwanese trade publications describe it as workable but punishing.
Chinese language industry reporting corroborates this picture. Domestic outlets describe testing of homegrown DUV tools, generally benchmarked against older ASML generations. These reports are candid about limitations. Precision optics and certain control subsystems remain difficult to localise. There is no claim of parity with EUV.
This is not a breakthrough story. It is an accumulation story.
The servicing choke point
Where the control regime tightens most aggressively is servicing. Dutch authorities have confirmed that ASML now requires licences to provide certain spare parts, software updates, and servicing support for specified systems in China. This is intended to slow post sale capability enhancement.
Sales versus servicing
Export controls are strongest at the point of sale. Once complex tools are installed, optimisation, calibration, and maintenance increasingly occur in fragmented ecosystems. This does not imply illegality. It reflects the limits of policing installed capital equipment.
Taiwanese reporting treats this distinction seriously. It explains why formal servicing constraints encourage process optimisation rather than dramatic technical leaps.
The Western media allegation
A recent British broadsheet alleged that Chinese fabs have sourced upgraded stages, lenses, and sensors via secondary markets, installed by third party engineers, materially improving ASML DUV performance. This claim has been widely repeated.
We attempted to corroborate it using Chinese language industry reporting, Taiwanese semiconductor trade press, and regional supply chain publications. No open source independently names the intermediaries, parts, or service firms involved.
Western media allegation
Claims that specific ASML DUV components were sourced via secondary markets and installed by named third party engineering firms remain unproven on the open record. Taiwanese outlets relay the allegation but do not add independent reporting.
This does not establish that the allegation is false. It establishes that it is unverified.
Why this distinction matters
Export control violations are not inferred from outcomes. They require evidence of a controlled item, a prohibited transfer, and a responsible exporting or servicing entity. Absent that chain, implication becomes analytically weak and legally hazardous.
ASML’s public position is narrow and precise. It complies with applicable law and does not provide prohibited upgrades. Nothing in the open Taiwanese or Chinese record contradicts that statement.
The structural reality
The strongest conclusion supported by the evidence is not that controls are being dramatically bypassed. It is that learning curves erode their effectiveness over time. Installed tools create skills, process libraries, and tolerance for inefficiency in exchange for autonomy.
Assessment
It is plausible that Chinese fabs are extending the effective performance of installed DUV systems through process optimisation, refurbishment, and incremental substitution. However, the specific upgrade chains alleged in Western media remain assessment rather than established fact.
That conclusion is less dramatic than headlines suggest. It is also more durable.
Conclusion
China’s semiconductor progress does not rest on secret breakthroughs. It rests on time, scale, and a willingness to pay inefficiency costs that others avoid. Export controls slow that process. They do not freeze it.
The danger is not that the system is being cleverly evaded. It is that the system was never designed to govern learning once machines are installed.
References
Taiwan TechNews semiconductor reporting on DUV multi patterning
Chinese language semiconductor industry publications on domestic lithography testing
Telegraph.com on ASML servicing restrictions and Dutch export controls
TrendForce analysis of China lithography pathways
Chinese and Regional Sources Consulted
This article is based on direct review of Chinese-language semiconductor industry publications, Taiwanese supply-chain reporting, and regional technical analysis, supplemented by industry sourcing.
Mainland China – Semiconductor and Technology Media
• 《电子工程专辑》（ESM China）
• OFweek 半导体 / OFweek 电子工程
• 《第一财经》（Yicai）
• 36氪（36Kr）
• 《半导体行业观察》
• 中国半导体行业协会（CSIA）公开材料
Taiwan – Semiconductor and Supply-Chain Media
• 《科技新报》（TechNews Taiwan）
• DigiTimes（中文与国际版）
• 《经济日报》（台湾）
• 《商业周刊》（台湾）
Regional and Industry Analysis
• TrendForce 集邦科技
• 亚洲半导体产业研究与市场分析报告
Industry Sources
In addition to published material, the analysis draws on direct conversations with industry participants and supply-chain professionals familiar with lithography tooling, semiconductor manufacturing processes, and equipment servicing practices.
