In its tech war with America, China brings out the big guns

IN THE TECH battle between America and China, the Western power has been more aggressive of late. Last year President Joe Biden’s administration laid out harsh restrictions limiting Chinese artificial-intelligence (AI) companies’ access to American technology. America has also been coaxing allies to follow its lead. On June 30th the Netherlands, under pressure from the White House, announced that it would restrict the sales of some chipmaking equipment to China: ASML, a Dutch maker of the world’s most advanced lithography machines, will from now on sell Chinese customers only low-yield devices for etching cutting-edge chips. On July 4th the Wall Street Journal reported that the American government may be preparing to curb Chinese use of American cloud-computing services, which enable Chinese AI firms to circumvent America’s earlier sanctions by taking advantage of the cloud provider’s high-end processors without owning chips of their own.