South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared that Seoul wants to strengthen cooperation with Amsterdam, Washington and Tokyo in the field of semiconductors, a key industry disrupted by competition between the United States and China.
South Korea intends to “considerably strengthen cooperation in the field of semiconductors with such important countries as the Netherlands, the United States and Japan”, declared Yoon Suk-yeol, in a written interview with the France-Presse news agency, before the start, on Monday, of the State visit to the Netherlands.
Used in everything from weapons to cars and refrigerators, microchips power the modern global economy, with South Korea responsible for around 60% of global supply, Yoon highlighted.
“As competition between countries and regions intensifies due to the hegemony of emerging technologies, the semiconductor industry is more important than ever from a strategic point of view, which makes this visit to the Netherlands particularly significant”, he argued.
“Semiconductors are the pillar of cooperation between Korea and the Netherlands”, both major semiconductor producers, with “the stable and sustainable growth of the global semiconductor industry being in the fundamental interest of both countries”, added the South Korean President .
The Netherlands recently joined the US and Japan in imposing restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, with the aim of preventing China from acquiring the most advanced ‘chips’ likely to be used in weapons and high technology. .
These restrictions provoked the ire of Beijing, which accused Washington of “technological terrorism”.