I agree. I've read the article. It is the same one-week-old news of a visit next Monday of US officials in Holland to push for ASML to stop service in China.
At the moment it is just US media pumping up this stuff, but nothing effective yet. Last time, one year ago, it was needed a top meeting at White House between Holland PM and Biden to have some real effect, and a very slow one BTW, because actual restrictions on ASML kicked in almost one year later. I really don't think this delegation will come back home with anything but some lip service from Ducth officials.
The biggest leverage US has in this thing is that Holland PM Rutte, is candidate to become the next NATO secretary, a position formally chosen by NATO members, but in reality chosen by US. This is of course a big bargain chip....for both sides, US and Rutte itself...and ASML could be the one to pay for US and Rutte interests.
Nevertheless China should of course already plan for the worst. In a perfect world, one can envision a spin-off of ASML China in an independent company, with a good chunk of Chinese shareholders brought in. But we don't live in a perfect world, and US would never agree on this, even if ASML itself maybe would: it is one of the very few ways for ASML not being kicked out of China market in the long term and maybe it would even make business sense in a semiconductor decoupling scenario, that is where we are heading to at full speed.
