I think that’s sometimes framed as not wanting to help China improve in technologically advanced industries? But of course it will improve anyway.

Maybe the article could have been framed in a less binary way: it didn’t slow them down as much as they hoped.

There are geopolitical and economic advantages gained by the west through denying China access to ASML’s semiconductor tooling. Western aligned semiconductor companies have the leading edge semiconductor market locked down, and forces China to use semiconductors that aren’t bleeding edge for their own internal use, militarily or otherwise.

I’m speculating that the vast manufacturing knowledge transfer to China through offshoring is seen as a “bad thing” by western politicians, who then sought to limit China’s ability to do the same with semiconductors.

China will likely figure out EUV eventually, by hook or by crook. There’s only so much you can do to keep that knowledge contained, considering the amount of people who have the knowledge.