The Dutch company ASML, as basically the only company in the world that makes the lithography machines used to produce the most complex microchips, has again become a geopolitical pawn. The United States government is preparing to force the Netherlands to ban ASML from selling almost any chip-making machines to China, NU.nl reports.
It’s not about proportional response, it’s about what we can do. We can’t do alot, but we could at least not share critical technology.
I’m not sure why are you comparing Russia to US. The CIA has never officially planned or executed a successful coup in Europe. If you want us to get hostile towards any country who has done something to another country (outside EU), we’d have only enemies.
Again. If we’d get involved into every conflict, we’d likely have no friends, but only enemies. Which war is more important for Europe? Why would we shift focus to middle east? Europe is already pretty much hostile towards Israel and not on good terms with US (Spain just signed some mining deal with Iran), but why are we even talking about those two conflicts? There are currently 25+ active conflicts. Why not a single word about Thailand and Cambodia, or all those African conflicts, or Iran, or Afghanistan, or Sudan, or etc… Either you’re a hypocrite and care about specific conflict only, or you want EU to basically sacrifice itself by getting involved into every conflict (which would borderline lead to isolationism).
What do you think Americans would do with Russo-Ukrainian war if we sent assist or even weapons to Palestine (same old “what can we even do?”)? Same with getting involved into Asia (Thailand). Let’s just not, we have our own war.
Well, now we’re down to “pragmatic responses”.
By which point we’re not “punishing” anybody for being bad boys, we’re doing things for geo-strategical value - basically to change behavior or reduce the possibility of future behaviors which are bad for us.
What the poster that originated this thread wanted - that Europe stops sending any tech to China because in his or her view China “supports” (unclear how much is too much) Russia - is not an appropriate response in pragmatic terms because it is a hostile movement towards a massive and increasingly influential nation - China - to try and change unclear behavior (just how much does China really “support” Russia compared to, say, India?) which supposedly indirectly would change somebody else’s (Russia) behavior. Specifically for the EU, said somebody else is bad for it because they basically bark a lot towards it (whilst not actually biting it, though they do bit others) and have committed crimes in the EU at the level of a small organized crime organization.
How exactly is it pragmatic to go down a route of trade aggression towards a giant nation which is friendish towards a different nation to somehow (magic?) try and deter said other nation from further committing in the EU the level of crime of a small criminal organization?!
The retribution from China would cost the EU vastly more than the problem that action by the EU might (but it’s not at all guaranteed) ameliorate.
That’s not pragmatic in any way form or shape.
If we’re going for punishing them, then that’s not “pragmatic” anymore, that’s at the level of principles, at which point what I wrote about punishing all imperialists, genociders and their supports applies.