Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia
Related: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/chinas-wingtech-says-dutch-court-freezes-control-nexperia-amid-national-security-dispute
The ministry of economic affairs intervened out of a fear that crucial technological skills and capacities will leave the Netherlands and Europe. The ministry stated in a press release[1] that there was a threat of a "knowledge leak" (w/e that means exactly) and a possible threat to the European economy.
After this intervention the Dutch government can now stop or reverse decisions within the company. That's only allowed if those decisions are harmful to the interests of the company, or for the future of the company as a Dutch or European business, or to the retaining of this crucial value chain for europe.
The company can appeal this decision in court.
For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used. As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops, I am inclined to believe that something quite significant was about to happen for this law to get invoked. What exactly that was can for now only be speculated about.
I can recommend you run google translate (or equivalent) on the press release. It's as close as you can get to the source of this news for now. I can only imagine the government is going to be having plenty of debates on the topic coming up, seeing as this is a very rare use of a very heavy-handed tool.
[0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2586270-kabinet-grijpt-hard-in-bij-ch...
[1] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2025/10/12/wet-b...
It’s a continuation of recent trends and closing markets.
Nobody in their sane mind would allow a company like ASML or the likes to be purchased by competitors.
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
As far as I understand, Samsung, TSMC, and SMIC are all closely guarded by their respective governments. And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all. So I don't see the irony - everyone practices protectionism, some are just more subtle about it than others. Some China-specific examples:
tmnvix points out the perfectly analogous Chinese restriction of rare earth exports: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572420
China imposes more trade and investment barriers, discriminatory taxes, and information security restrictions than any other country by a vast margin. - https://ecipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DTE_China_TWP_R...
As with most countries, China has adopted some policies aimed at protecting or promoting its domestic industries, including targeted quotas, subsidies to certain key industries and rejection of patents in critical industries. - https://www.rfa.org/english/news/afcl/fact-check-china-prote...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 - government plan with securing first local, and the global key markets, for indigenous firms, the acquisition of foreign technology companies, and independence from foreign suppliers, as explicit goals.
It would be foolish to sell off a great value like ASML or others that adds incredible value. But one should also not get mad when other countries do it, because they see their industries as valuable things as well.
Our markets are just getting more closed and different groups are being formed. Let’s hope other high value companies gather their IP rights as well.
It would be foolish to sell off a great value like ASML or others that adds incredible value. But one should also not get mad when other countries do it, because they see their industries as valuable things as well.
This reads like a straw man argument. No one gets mad when other countries do it. At most, you see complains of protectionism being unilaterally imposed while benefitting from your competitor's openness. See for example the criticism directed at the likes of China for preventing foreign companies from even investing in their domestic market without a government-minder-as-a-partner scheme, while China throws a tantrum when there is even a hint of suggestion that Chinese companies should be subjected to the same type of treatment when operating abroad. See the case of TikTok, for example.
If tit-for-tat is our policy, then we should at least be upfront about it and enshrine it in law, instead of using some ancient law to slap China with: that's arbitrariness.
But of course it benefits everyone at the expense of deficit countries, so why change or truly address the literature. Appealing to international law today as such is just appealing to entrenched interests.
But the matter of fact is that in a true free trade regime, imbalances should rebalance back to zero. The fact that the deficit is only growing is more than enough evidence that China is obviously the violators here. And everybody knows this.
Under a multilateral Bancor System which Chinese economists themselves advocated back in 2009, China would have been immediately subjected to massive FX overvaluation to degrade their conpetiveness.
Under a multilateral Bancor System which Chinese economists themselves advocated back in 2009
I had to look that up and this stood out
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner expressed interest in the idea of greater use of SDRs as a reserve. However, he was criticized severely for this in the United Statess, and the dollar lost 5 cents against the euro in exchange markets following his statements. He and President Barack Obama shortly afterwards backtracked Geithner's comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor#Proposed_revival
I'm beginning to see a pattern of which country is blocking any progress here.
There is a huge difference between establishing from the beginning clear rules that set limits to foreign investment, like in China, and changing the rules afterwards, after luring foreign investors, and then taking ownership of their assets, like for Tik Tok and Nexperia.
Obviously I agree that USA and the EU have acted very foolishly in the past by exporting technology to China (foolishly for the national interests, while a few have been greatly enriched by this), but at least they followed consistent policies, not like now, when they change the rules of the game whenever they see that they are the losers.
Philips Semiconductors should have never been sold and become non-Dutch, but if they have been so stupid as to do this, they should assume their responsibility and finance the creation of a new European semiconductor device manufacturer, to ensure the independence of hostile entities.
I think China is complaining about changing the rules retrospectively when they become successful in a field. But I’m not following how this is any different than French subsidies or limitations on farming products from Ukraine.
If they’re abusing the system, which I presume we all can agree that they do, why don’t we force them to play by the rules, or do we not like losing so we keep changing the rules when somebody else starts to win.
Again, I wouldn’t allow such vital industries from medical equipments to military tech to be outsourced to this level. It was silly to begin with.
And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all.
This is one of the most persistent misunderstandings about China.
China had a closed, planned economy. It began opening up to foreign investment in the 1980s, but not all at once in every sector. China's general approach has been gradual, instead of the "shock therapy" that the ex-Soviet Union went through (which destroyed its economy).
China initially allowed foreign investment in certain sectors, with conditions like involvement of a local joint-venture partner. An example of this was Volkswagen building a factory in Shanghai in 1984, with the Chinese company SAIC as a local partner with 50% ownership.
Over time, the number of sectors that are open to foreign investment has increased (most sectors are now open), and the rules on investment have been loosened. For example, joint-venture requirements in the automotive sector were phased out and completely eliminated by 2022. Tesla completely owns its operations in China. Toyota has announced that it is buying out its JV partner. Other Western automotive manufacturers have taken majority stakes in their operations.
China has been moving towards more openness to foreign investment over time, not less. It does have policies like "Made in China 2025" that are intended to move up the value chain, and avoid getting stuck making low-value plastic toys forever. China wants to be like the US and EU, after all - a developed economy that manufactures lots of high-tech goods.
China has been moving towards more openness to foreign investment over time
After they lost most of those same foreign investors that got tired of handing over their IP, the "local partnering" (what often resulted in state/court backed judgements against the foreign investors), ...
The disasters "wolf warrior" politics, combined with the above mentioned issues. And the stringent monetary policies limitation on moving money out of China did not help (translation: We want you to put money in, not being able to pull it out).
This has resulted in a reduction of foreign investment by almost 70% (given the 15 year average). What used to be easily be 200 a 250B investments per year, has now dropped to barely 100B, and is still declining.
The European and American car manufacturers, for example, never lost their considerable competitive edge over their Chinese rivals. In the end, it was an entirely different technology - electric cars - that allowed the Chinese to leap-frog the legacy car manufacturers, and not because of IP sharing, but because of Chinese R&D in battery technology.
This has resulted in a reduction of foreign investment by almost 70% (given the 15 year average). What used to be easily be 200 a 250B investments per year, has now dropped to barely 100B, and is still declining.
Foreign investment in China peaked in 2022. The reasons for the decline are cyclical (not just because of China's internal economic situation, but because of international factors like the hike in US Federal Funds Target Rate since 2022), not because China suddenly started demanding IP sharing or suddenly changed its currency rules in 2022 (none of which happened).
Foreign investment was already in a down trend from 2013, investment kept somewhat stable in the 2015-2019 periode. Until a little unknown virus hit the world, resulting in a total shutdown / disrupted market.
There was a peak in 2021 as of the resulting reopening of the Chinese market, you know, kind of hard to do business when your companies employees need to spend a month in a hotel in quarantine. So there was a strong recovery in those years, a known effect from the 2020 pandemic and the eventual recovery.
I do not even know where you get the peak in 2022 when it was 2021. 2022 was barely on the level of te 2015-2019 periode. In 2023 it ended up crashing to 1990's level of investment.
And has been a negative FDI for the past 3 years. That means more investment is being pulled out of the country, not in anymore.
So unless you want to dispute macroeconomic data, your information is highly off. I am not even going to touch the whole IP comment "massively overblown" as there are plenty of reports on how it absolute not overblown.
No offense but your comments read like a propagandist. I let the readers make up their minds, as my information can be easily google on.
Foreign investment was already in a down trend from 2013, investment kept somewhat stable in the 2015-2019 periode. Until a little unknown virus hit the world, resulting in a total shutdown / disrupted market. [...] I do not even know where you get the peak in 2022 when it was 2021.
You're just wrong about this, as you can see by looking at a chart of FDI into China:[0]. The story from 2013 to now is not "downward trend." 2013 was a peak year. Then FDI declined through 2017, before generally increasing until 2021, when it reached its all-time peak. You're right that I got the year wrong: the peak was in 2021, not 2022. But the story you've told of there being a steady decline since 2013, due to foreign companies not wanting to share IP, is just completely disproven by the chart. It also doesn't make sense based on how Chinese IP sharing policies have changed over time - they have been rolled back in the last decade, not increased.
There have been huge changes in the world economic outlook and in financial policy since 2022. The US ended the zero-interest-rate policy in 2022, which has huge implications for global monetary flows.
No offense but your comments read like a propagandist. I let the readers make up their minds, as my information can be easily google on.
Yes, readers can Google it (or look at the World Bank data below) and see that the story you're telling is just plain wrong. People in the US are exposed to such a crazy level of constant fear mongering about China that any kind of moderating comments are seen as propaganda.
0. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?locat...
And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all
Tesla was the first to buck this trend.
The answer I heard at the time was to get local suppliers and workforce up to Tesla standards.
It appears to have worked out for China quite nicely.
Chinese Teslas had higher standards early on, panels aligned and such.
although they had to find a partner to do Azure.
By "finding a partner" you actually mean have Azure-branded services provided by Chinese companies through isolated data centers.
Which kind of proves OPs point.
Western companies have virtually no IP in China. It gets stolen and IP rights are not enforcible - western companies basically cannot sue Chinese companies. Chinese companies can enforce their IP against western companies, who have to surrender theirs to access the Chinese market. The system is completely rigged in China's favour.
The only way to level that playing field is for western nations to do the same: Let their domestic companies freely steal Chinese IP and selectively enforce IP rights, as China does.
The only way to level that playing field is for western nations to do the same: Let their domestic companies freely steal Chinese IP and selectively enforce IP rights, as China does.
China literally just gives it away for free. They are the top supplier of open source LLMs.
And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all. So I don't see the irony - everyone practices protectionism, some are just more subtle about it than others.
And the west always said that China is bad for doing it.
That’s the irony part.
And the west always said that China is bad for doing it.
"The west" criticizes China because the ruling regime imposes a series of arbitrary restrictions to foreign companies, including outright banning them, while demanding that Chinese companies should have unrestricted access to foreign markets.
You are now faced with an exceptionally rare event where a member of "the west" enforces restrictions that are similar to the ones China broadly imposes on foreign companies, but does so on an isolated incident. And you call that irony.
enforces restrictions that are similar to the ones China
No; the restrictions the West places on Chinese companies are not remotely comparable in proportionality or form.
But worse - China does not just have the opportunity to operate in the West in an asymmetrical fashion, but they're fairly aggressively openly stealing intellectual property etc., not just as a matter of 'national security' but as a matter of normal business operations.
The Chinese government operates police stations in foreign countries to surveille and oppress local citizens of the Chinese diaspora, and to coordinate activities.
There are always geopolitical shenanigans, but the West acted in roughly good faith inviting China into the WTO and was happy to play by some reasonable set of rules.
It's fair to use the label 'hypocritical' for what seems like arbitrary action in the West, but it's not truly arbitrary because it's a reaction to what was lack of good faith at least on the terms that were understood, and the term 'hypocritical' could be used tenfold in the other direction.
Also - even if everyone was playing roughly fair according to their own competitive advantages, the imbalances in some areas would be so problematic that there would have be some kind of reckoning anyhow.
The terms need to be reset, capital flows need to be adjusted, the USD cannot maintain such a high ranking position if they don't want to import, vast offshore tax shelters need to be shut down. Dubai is 'Mos Eisley' on Tatooine it's really just bad money.
Beware of the beginnings.
We‘ll see how rare and isolated this is will be.
Why do you presume this is bad?
If it’s bad why doing it?
We would like for western companies to be able to operate in China the way we let Chinese companies operate in our nations, but since China don't want to reciprocate and want to play an unfair game, the only real option is to level the playing field - if China wants to make the rules, lets take those rules and apply them domestically to. We should:
* Require Chinese companies to have a domestic partner.
* Selectively enforce (or rather ignore) IP when infringing on Chinese IP.
* Force IP transfer as a condition to access our markets.
* Require Chinese visitors to tell the police where they're living.
* Many more policies which are unfavourable to the Chinese.
China, chief hypocrite, will of course complain about anything which discriminates against China abroad, while doing exactly that thing at home.
So now Europe are doing the same thing.
and that action is perfectly fine. But it is then hypocritic to claim one is more justified than the other
Not really. Everyone was extending courtesies to China, but China opted to unilaterally reject the notion thay others could receive the same benefits they were enjoying. Now you're seeing this sort of courtesies being pulled for the first time. And you opt to frame this as hipocricy?
I think the question is: did China ever took over a foreign company because "national security" or whatever perceived risk?
Even those 'local partnerships' in China were not above board - they existed to steal the intellectual property from the partnered Western company.
It seems the only thing that can be nailed down are 'consumer brands' which are difficult to duplicate.
[1] https://www.planetizen.com/node/47241
At least in the context of trade over the last 35 years, there has been an imbalance.
As for 'Arbitrary Rules' - it's a fair claim and the US, EU etc. need to establish clear and fair terms. So should China, India, Brazil, everywhere else.
If, for instance, we call out China for surveillance of their citizens and then start doing the same, isn‘t that ironic?
A few more than half century old examples don't change what we can all see is the case in the present day.
They only backed up when the US told the Brits and France they would tank their economies still on US life support.
And, pray, why did the Machado win the hypocrisy prize on Friday? Why are American ships outside the waters of Venezuela?
The British, French and Israelis literally went to war against Egypt over the Suez.They only backed up when the US told the Brits and France they would tank their economies still on US life support.
But they did back off. The US was willing to stand up for Egyptian sovereignty even against their own allies. That isn't an example of non-western countries being unable to enact protectionist policies, it's an example of the opposite.
I suppose installing el-Sisi is also an example of protecting Egyptian sovereignty:
https://www.cato.org/commentary/ten-years-after-coup-us-stil...
The British, French, and Israelis literally went to war against Egypt over the Suez.
The British and the French were concerned about the Suez, but Israel was not dependent on the Suez and went to war over their navigation being blockaded by Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, which was a violation by Egypt of maritime law. Aqaba is in the Sinai peninsula which is also bounded by the Suez.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_passage_through_the_Su...
[1] https://www.latintimes.com/nicolas-maduro-losing-it-venezuel...
For some reason, over the past few decades the powerful countries from the West employed rhetoric to suggest that their actions are guided by principles and morals. That was most likely a reaction to a huge wave of anti-colonial revolutions and national liberation struggles that tore the Western empires apart. However, USA and Israel have taken off the mask over the past 2 years, and that weasly rhetoric is now over.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#Melian_Dialogue
But talking seriously, the OP didn't say that other countries never do it. Just that the powers have innumerable examples of coups to knock out governments that do this. A lot of them were democratic and popular governments.
because they know that "Western" powers would wage war if necessary.
Why do you feel the need go single out "the west"? I mean, where do you think the container ships crossing the Suez go to and come from? Do you think that the likes of China would be totally ok with their main trade routes being severed and instead having to go all the way around Africa?
You're framing things as if there's still a British empire syphoning the economies of their colonies all the way from Great Britain, with no one else involved or committed to any trade whatsoever.
(...) the CFA franc
Why do you think this is relevant in discussions over who would respond to shutting down the Suez canal? I mean, do you have a map?
The US did the same when it was young, along with large instances of exfiltrating tech (Samuel Slater, kicked off the American industrial revolution).
This is not how free markets function.
Governments have lots of other incentives (like job creation, elections, income distribution)
A government has a monopoly on violence. A government has a monopoly on money printing and taxation. A government has a monopoly on the legislation. A government has far more human and financial resources than any other economic actor within its borders.
If a company goes out of business, people lose their jobs. If a government goes out of business, people lose their lives.
It is not a difference in degree, it is a difference in kind. There is a reason that economist distinguish between private firms and government.
Yes, they do favor their own companies and provide subsidies etc. that’s not the problem though, the problem is that they’re undercutting other companies by selling below cost thanks to those subsidies. Otherwise, we would have to call our farming subsidies the same.
I was originally trying to point out that it has always been important to keep your vital industries secure, it was very stupid of Intel and others to transfer so much technology abroad (to anyone) just to increase their margins, I think ASML did the best: You can purchase our machine, but that’s pretty much it.
There’s simply no such thing as a free market. Why we single out subsidy as non free is arbitrary. What activities constitute legitimate free market behavior? There’s no actual logically sound distinction.
Sounds like a nirvana fallacy. Yes, nowhere has a perfectly free market, just as nowhere has a perfectly corruptionless justice system and railroad tracks are never perfectly parallel. But there are definitely markets that are less free than others and actions that distort markets further, and it's right to call those out.
The whole point is that when in some market there is some nation trying to disturb the free market mechanism in its favor, other countries can't just be naïve and stand by doing nothing. They have to counter act and this is what happend in The Netherlands.
It stops being free when government attacks economic activity, not when it promotes it.
In this regard, the Chinese government pouring large subsidies into solar panel production both spurred the economic activity around installing solar panels, and attacked / thwarted in around production of the panels themselves, if the production happens outside China. Only the US was able to somehow develop solar panel production.
The US used its massive state surveillance apparel to spy on essentially every country in the world, not only for diplomatic advantage, which you might argue would be fair game, but also to steal industrial secrets and promote US companies (see e.g. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m... for France, one of their supposed allies).
Paraphrasing you:
The US heavily subsidize their companies and have large government bureaus that strategically guide industries over long time frames. For example, the US has been on a long, intentional path to destroying all international corn producers via subsidies, dumping, etc.
The US essentially destroyed the traditional crop growing in Mexico by a combination of subsidies and free trade agreements.
It is _true_ that China does not play a fair free trade game. It is _not true_ that the US, or any other country, does. (The reasons for it should be obvious btw, free trade only works if legislation is more or less the same everywhere, otherwise it's just stupid.)
For example, the CCP has been on a long, intentional path to destroying all international solar manufacturers via subsidies, dumping, etc.
You should see what Microsoft did. Forgetting the corruption the open document format, free/subsidised licences for students is almost the same thing.
Let's rather choose a set of principles and apply them without exception?
Isolationism sucks. You have a domestic industry but it's not allowed to sell to other countries in retaliation for you doing the same to them, so it's small and consolidated and when the domestic providers are correspondingly terrible the trade barriers inhibit you from using the foreign ones.
"Free Trade" (but not actually) is even worse, because you take down your own trade barriers nominally in exchange for others doing the same, and then some of them don't. They subsidize their industries so that the global industry consolidates into one country and then if that country sucks you're in even worse shape because it's also a single point of failure and subject to foreign political forces.
What we should be doing isn't going back to trade barriers, it's creating sufficient tax incentives to sustain a domestic industry for strategically important products and then letting other countries do the same and consumers choose which company they want to buy it from. Because then you don't have trade barriers but you do have both domestic production and competition.
The price is that companies in those industries would essentially be paying lower taxes than they currently do or receiving some subsidies in order to make them competitive with the other countries doing something equivalent. But maybe that's not the worst of the three options.
What we should be doing isn't going back to trade barriers, it's creating sufficient tax incentives to sustain a domestic industry for strategically important products and then letting other countries do the same and consumers choose which company they want to buy it from.
Trade happens because not a single country has or can produce all the (strategically important) products it wants, without trading with others.
Entities the size of the US or the EU are capable of producing most or all strategically important products internally
The US can internally produce: food staples, fossil fuels and nuclear fuel, most (but not all) industrial chemicals and construction material, defense systems and major military equipment, generic drugs and many medical devices.
However, vulnerabilities exist in: semiconductors, rare earth minerals, speciality chemicals and pharmaceutical raw materials.
Even if the EU were a country, it has high self-sufficiency for: temperature agriculture, industrial chemicals, some aerospace and defense components. However, it is import dependent for: energy, specialty metals and rare earths, pharmaceuticals, high-tech electronics and semiconductors.
Lastly, what about the remaining 167 countries in the world (195 - US - EU)? 90% of the world's population live outside the US and EU.
Trade is really really important for human flourishing.
The US can internally produce: food staples, fossil fuels and nuclear fuel, most (but not all) industrial chemicals and construction material, defense systems and major military equipment, generic drugs and many medical devices.
The US used to produce nearly all of those things and would benefit from having the industrial capacity to process rare earths even if some of the mining happens in Brazil or India or Australia.
Lastly, what about the remaining 167 countries in the world (195 - US - EU)? 90% of the world's population live outside the US and EU.
They would then have the option to buy any of them from the US, the EU or China instead of having only one of those monopolize global production.
Trade happens because not a single country has or can produce all the (strategically important) products it wants,
This is an interesting claim. What if instead, a single country could produce all the products it wants and needs, but that doing so would be less lucrative for a certain subset of the population that can take advantage of trade? In such a case, that single country might fail to do so and import a bunch of crap anyway, don't you think?
If you only provide subsidies then consumer prices go down rather than up because the mechanism of operation is for the subsidies to make the domestic supplier more attractive rather than for tariffs to make foreign suppliers less attractive. Meanwhile the subsidy is paid by the government and then the legislators will be trying to keep it down rather than raise it because it reduces the money they have to spend on other things rather than increasing tariffs which do the opposite.
free for me but not for thee
That's rich, coming from a country which outright bands foreign corporations from even operating within their borders, and those who they allow have to operate through a state-controlled corporate minder.
China is nothing like your paranoid fantasy.
- Certain industries are restricted or prohibited for foreign investors.
- The “Negative List for Foreign Investment” explicitly bans or limits foreign participation in many areas (e.g., media, education, data services, telecoms, mining). - Some sectors require a Chinese joint venture (you can’t have 100% ownership).
So even though the law allows foreign entry, policy barriers and regulatory discretion make it hard in practice.
To use your example of Volkswagen, their ownership in China is structured around several joint ventures, where it shares ownership with Chinese companies like SAIC Motor, FAW Group, and JAC Group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC_Volkswagen
The “Negative List for Foreign Investment” explicitly bans or limits foreign participation in many areas (e.g., media, education, data services, telecoms, mining)
That's a very good for them, by looking at the list. Look at how big a problem the EU now has with its reliance on US tech and military. Sovereignty is very important in strategic industries and in those that allow foreign powers to influence your population.
of use your example of Volkswagen, their ownership in China is structured around several joint ventures
Volkswagen is a cherry picked example, look at Tesla, which isn't a joint venture. BMW still uses a JV but now holds 75% of BMW Brilliance etc. And it's no longer required for car companies to use joint ventures, that rule was lifted in one of the recent years and more industries were actually opened in the same time.
Volkswagen is a cherry picked example, look at Tesla, which isn't a joint venture. BMW still uses a JV but now holds 75% of BMW Brilliance etc.
No cherry picking. Purely random. FWIW, according to my quick research there are only 3 vehicle manufacturers that operate and manufacture in China while retaining 100% ownership as a foreign company. They are Tesla (Gigafactory in Shanghai), Lexus (EV plant in Shanghai), and Scania (truck manuf. in Rugao). If this list is comprehensive, then it is very very short, and my original point stands which is that technically the market might be open (barring the exceptions I mentioned), but in practice it is pretty closed because it is so hard to enter due to all the barriers that are put up.
I think it is fair to say, and I think you would agree, that on a spectrum of free trade, China doesn't rank very high.
BMW example I mentioned is an example of exercising that choice, it lifted its stake in BMW Brilliance from 50% to 75% once the rules changed. And Tesla ias wholly owned in Shanghai (enabled by the 2018 NEV opening). That's precisely the point I made, it wasn't an "exception" as you framed it, to a still binding rule, it was an early use of the liberalization.
So since 2022 ownership is a strategic choice for these companies. Many legacy JVs remain not because they don't have a choice but because of scale, supply chain integration, dealer networks, local partners assets etc, so on other words it works for them like this better, but any OEM with the capital can take majority or go 100% (as BMW did and as Tesla/Scania/Lexus show).
Saying "technically the market might be open ... but in practice it is pretty closed" doesn't hold up to the post 2022 facts.
That's rich, coming from a country
What country do you know Globalnode is coming from? Just interested in the high level of assurance.
For me consumerism seems much worse than free trade. Buying clothes and use it once, change the car each year or other similar behaviors seem unsustainable because nobody cares about the generated garbage or the energy/material requirements.
Sure, now in some countries we can associate free trade with consumerism, but it's not everywhere the same.
For me consumerism seems much worse than free trade. Buying clothes and use it once, change the car each year or other similar behaviors seem unsustainable because nobody cares about the generated garbage or the energy/material requirements.
I don't believe in putting the responsibility on individuals. Billions upon billions of whatever currency are being poured into ads, marketing, influencing, lobbying, propaganda (and whatever other manipulation mechanism I'm not thinking of), employing some of the most brilliant mind of this generation, to ensure that individuals are consumerist. Because that's what will make companies the most money, and "making more money" is the only incentive this society has in place.
Show me the incentive and I show you the outcome: the outcome is enormous externalities. We need to fix the incentives, not expect individuals to somehow act against them en masse.
"making more money" is the only incentive this society has in place
Which society? I lived in 3 different societies (more than a couple of years), and while it is true that money is one of the incentive I think there were fundamental differences that were not obvious about what makes people tick. And by looking at the political situation around the globe - my impression that people care about many more things than their bank account.
That does not mean I propose specific solutions, I am just very skeptical that without free trade things will be better on average for more people than without, if anything is just a red herring so that nobody deals with the more complex issues.
perhaps the US is doing that for other reasons (RFK Jr.) but the good news is that in the post US hegemonic order, that country can go ahead and collapse into flames and the rest of the world won't be taken down with it.
The capitalist propaganda, "freedom", is so ingrained that we cannot easily paddle back on it. So we will become helplessly hypocritical instead.
Early America had no regard for intellectual property rights because all the good media came from abroad - then we built Hollywood and saw the light. The west pushes deregulation and free trade because we've got the money and the only thing that can keep us from sucking a market dry is government intervention. The Dutch just seized a company because a geopolitical opponent was using it to exercise leverage, which is also how TikTok became a sub-brand of Oracle.
Nation states will use whatever words are necessary to justify their actions, but the game is and always has been power, leverage, and interest. Given the rise of China, I'm guessing we're going to get a lot more opportunities to tut and shake our heads about how hypocritical western governments turn out to be with regards to national economic interests.
(And, to be clear, I'm not saying this is like it's a good thing. I'm not a government, I'm a person, so all I get is the pointy end of all this happy rhetoric.)
The west and the US specifically has operated on an open market policy partly as a result of two world wars we got dragged into in relatively short order. Economic integration was thought to reduce the likelihood of another great war.
However what we have currently is a relatively developed economy (China) using currency manipulation and protective policies to prop up their own economy long after it has passed out of the "developing" phase. Plus massive and ongoing state investment and debt deferral. China effectively subsidizes massive amounts of economic activity that makes any US or EU tax breaks / protective policies look like chump change.
When you have such a large market participant behaving that way it is little wonder that people lose their faith in free markets and want to intervene. Including doing explicitly punitive things against China. It is an attitude of China's own making. After all... China will not allow you to buy a freakin' popsicle stand as a foreigner let alone a shipbuilding company or anything else.
China wants all the access to the rest of the world and wants everyone to buy their products... but they do not want to reciprocate.
China wants all the access to the rest of the world and wants everyone to buy their products... but they do not want to reciprocate.
There's a history with the West where they have been manipulated and taken advantage of in a way that the US never has.
It's possible their desire to force companies into partnerships is genuinely based on a fear of that happening again.
You say that China wants everyone to buy their products. There's also the implication that this is bad for the US economically. However China wouldn't benefit if their customers are poor.
There's a history with the West where they have been manipulated and taken advantage of in a way that the US never has.
That's definitely possible but I think the cause is much simpler: initially they wanted to bootstrap their own industries and now nothing forces them to do anything different so they just continue with hyper-protectionist policies.
On the side of the west: Outsourcing to China is the new group-think. The new "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" for the MBAs. A box of Bandaids now says "made in china" on it. Bandaids are churned out entirely by machine. Packed entirely by machine. Boxed entirely by machine. By the millions per day. Human labor input is more or less irrelevant. Why outsource that to China? Because that's the only thing management knows how to do and the only thing so-called investors understand. It certainly isn't to save money or make the product better.
However China wouldn't benefit if their customers are poor.
If I had a nickel for every time a government or leader adopts bad policies despite the obvious future negative consequences I'd be the world's richest person.
If I had a nickel for every time a government or leader adopts bad policies despite the obvious future negative consequences I'd be the world's richest person.
This is everyone. The voters are at fault as well because sometimes they support those that create short term wins over the long term.
For outsourcing politicians beliefs that the US workforce would become the white collar workers of the the world which is true would increase the quality of working life.
It gets a lot less contradictory when you realize the principles are window dressing for the interests.
I don't think this is the epiphany you think it represents. The whole point of laws and regulations is to protect interests.
Do you think that any regime passes and enforces laws that are detrimental to their best interests?
In free market economies, laws and regulations are put in place to foster competition, and antitrust legislation is in place to prevent anticompetitive practices. However, laws and regulations are also in place to prevent strategic interests from being captured or even threatened. The motivation is rather obvious and to the point. Where is this window dressing you speak of?
Nation states will use whatever words are necessary to justify their actions, but the game is and always has been power, leverage, and interest.
Your post shows some degree of confusion, specially by the way you imply inconsistencies. There are none, and the whole point is rather on the nose. Internal competition and level playing fields are promoted as they pressure companies to improve their competitiveness. "Competitiveness" is the operating principle. Having a rival third-party perform an action that threatens your competitiveness is obviously not acceptable.
"Window dressing" from the cited comment isn't about the existence of law, it's about the story told to legitimate a choice already made on interest grounds. When a principle helps the home coalition's position, it's foregrounded, when it threatens it, it's narrowed, reinterpreted, suspended etc. The principle is the sales pitch and the selection and timing are about power.
Countries push openness most intensely in sectors where their firms can penetrate foreign markets (finance in the 1990s, software/IP heavy goods in the 2000s etc). Because openness abroad protects their capital, openness at home is celebrated until it starts eroding strategic capacity. Then come security reviews, export controls, local content rules, subsidies etc and everything is wrapped in principled language.
Internal competition and level playing fields are promoted as they pressure companies to improve their competitiveness.
Until internal competition threatens a national champion in a strategic race. Then we let consolidation happen (or subsidize it) and call it "industrial policy". We laud the disciplining function of foreign competition until the foreign rival is big enough to discipline us, then it's "unfair trade", "security risk", "systemic rivalry" etc
For decades, openness to China was "win win globalization". As China's capability rose, the same flows (capital, tech, data etc) got relabeled as channels of leverage. Now we create controls, seizures/forced restructurings and targeted decoupling justified by a different principle than yesterday's.
So basically your "policy serves interests" is a truism that ignores the commenter's claim about how principles are instrumentalized. I mean free markets, antitrust, IP, security, sovereignty etc aren't a tight contradiction free doctrine. States pick the item that best advances leverage at that moment and explain it with whatever noble language fits. It's a realistic description of how advanced economies behave when the balance of advantage shifts.
And yet the sale was allowed - 7 years ago - and only voided now under cloak and dagger, via a never-before used law. The window dressing is the entire "international rules based order" we hear so much about. If it's all just interests, then you can't complain about Russia invading Ukraine, Israel annexing land from various neighbors, China taking Taiwan and seizing TSMC, etc.
Having a rival third-party perform an action that threatens your competitiveness is obviously not acceptable.
And yet that being acceptable is the entire basis of the free market system. So yes I'm just whistling past the graveyard, but the hypocrisy is real and there should be no crying about principles later. The embrace of "the strong do as they will and the weak suffer as they must" - just as the west's relative strength is at its lowest ebb in perhaps hundreds of years - is at the the very least a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off.
Now, we're in an era of petty self interest, in which no one trusts anyone else, international institutions and laws carry no weight, and everyone is poorer and less safe in the long run.
Everybody is a fan of free access and capital markets, until a foreign entity purchases something of importance.
The problem with China is that the "free access" was always one-sided as we did not insist on reciprocity - not for the Internet, not for tourism, not for companies, not for goods.
We gave China everything - we allowed their people to study at our universities, we allowed their tourists, we gave them virtually full access to our economic market, we gave them access to the Internet, we gave them seriously discounted shipping rates and customs exemptions.
And look where that got us. They lock in their population in a way reminding me of the GDR/Stasi era - if you're not an obedient citizen, you don't get permission to travel, everything is subject to surveillance and the one will of the Party -, they use their access to the Internet to steal, hack and run secret police organizations while locking their population behind the Great Firewall, they buy up our companies and shift crucial knowledge back to China. And in the meanwhile, good paying jobs in our countries were lost en masse to China, what used to be high-quality products that would last many years if not decades got replaced by China made ultra cheap junk.
We gave China everything - we allowed their people to study at our universities, we allowed their tourists, we gave them virtually full access to our economic market, we gave them access to the Internet, we gave them seriously discounted shipping rates and customs exemptions.
Lol, when you have to convince people that working in services instead of manufacturing is the future, that's what you get. Mindset is also a big issue, I know enough people who played the Erasmus game and graduated in double the normal time just by coasting that I think it's just normal at this point. And the problem with this spiral is that it just compounds, Europe is shifting to a continent of pensionists, highly educated people that live with their parents til their 40s and nepobabies playing airbnb landlords.
You're talking about it as if it was a bug, it was not. I'm pretty sure a generation of MBAs got raised and retired really rich shifting manufacturing jobs to China. The narrative about them not being open is just a way to cope with their rise now and get rid of any blame.
IMHO it's both. It did make sense to introduce China to the Western markets, even leaving the MBA BS aside, just out of moral fairness. It was the right thing to do ethically, the execution was just fucked up - in no small part as you say due to the rise of neoliberalism.
Lol, when you have to convince people that working in services instead of manufacturing is the future, that's what you get.
Yup. The problem with anything manufacturing is the associated pollution, energy usage and the healthcare costs from dealing with old-aged former physical laborers... we shifted all of that to China.
Europe is shifting to a continent of pensionists, highly educated people that live with their parents til their 40s
Not by choice though. The problem is that real estate markets are fucked over, in the hot markets where the jobs are, even as a gay DINK couple (aka landlord's dream - two full time incomes and a very low chance of them adopting a child which makes noise and causes complaints from other renters) you don't stand a chance.
Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.
Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.
Nitpicking a little, but the Chinese also make high quality stuff. It is not advertised as much though.
offshored manufacturing pollution
One might be tempted to say that offshoring the manufacturing pollution was the point - the Silicon Valley is the US' top Superfund site for a reason[1]. Now it's not Western countries that get to deal with the legacy of a few decades of exploitative capitalism, it's China, Taiwan and India which are out of sight, out of mind to us.
Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.
Indeed but that's a niche market which means R&D costs alone make products so much more expensive that it's basically impossible to compete... and for the stuff that is made domestically, manufacturers love to go for "planned obsolescence" and other strategies to turn consumer spending into recurring revenue - always remember BMW and subscription seat heaters.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...
We gave China everything - we allowed their people to study at our universities, we allowed their tourists, we gave them virtually full access to our economic market
I'm impressed by their generosity (whoever you're referring to as "we"). Did they also allow the Chinese to win Math Olympiad trophies at some point?
You can’t socialize losses and privatize gains.
You can’t socialize losses and privatize gains.
Yes, yes, and yes.
We kept doing this, a bank or company stretches too much after making record profits, and then cries for federal funding and free money.
The federal reserve is a lender of last resort and they shouldn’t have given that much money without any collateral etc. Even if they just kept the stock and then sold it afterwards, we wouldn’t be in this much debt. We spend trillions covering private losses, this was plain stupid.
if we are not a communist country (everyone seems to think that we are not) why the F would we socialize losses?!?
Hold on, the logic is any country that socialises anything to any degree is communist? Where the hell did you get that from?
it's an argument I'm sick of having, but it's an argument that needs to be had
OP[1] is the first person to make the argument that socialising anything implies communism in this thread. The entire shtick is a straw man. It doesn't need to be argued if it's only brought up by the side tearing it down.
argument I have heard about the US taking 20% stake in Intel is that when a company asks for federal money then it’s only fair if the federal government gets some equity in return
Great forward-looking concept. Terrible ex post facto. The precedent set is that the government can demand equity for past favours at any time.
Also, now that the U.S. owns a stake in Intel, where does that leave competitors? We're already seeing a push to force AMD and Intel to merge[1].
[1] https://www.tomsguide.com/tech/us-government-considering-cas...
You can’t socialize losses and privatize gains.
Companies do this all the time though.
For example, here in Louisiana the utility companies do this. After a major hurricane, Entergy will fix and upgrade tons of infrastructure and then get to tack on a +$15.00/m on to your utility bill for the next 5 to 10 years to recoup the costs all while they are making millions in profits each year.
Why pay for it themselves when they can just force the public to do it.
People voted for Chavez and then (at least once) for Maduro because the massive inequality was unsustainable. If the US had accepted that and worked with them instead of against them, maybe we'd be in a different place right now. But the interests of oil companies always come first, sadly. (obviously this does not absolve the Venezuelans from their responsibilities.)
The motive for recent boat bombings is supposedly stopping illegal drugs. Though IMO it has more to do with distracting from the release of certain human trafficking records. This US administration seems bent entirely to the will and ego of one person.
(Which isn't to say the US has clean hands. Our list of attempted coups in South America is long.)
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
Russia has nationalised a number of Western companies since 2022, even McDonalds.
Nothing happened.
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
So, my thinking is that there could be less patents, because they’re less likely to share the technology and patents might let others copy stuff.
Samsung was the original manufacturing partner for Apple, which allowed them to amass incredible amount of knowhow to create their own, and before that they were not even in the phone market much, yet alone launch their own phone.
Samsung was just better at marketing and other business aspects.
and before that [Apple] were not even in the phone market much, yet alone launch their own phone.
This applies to Apple, too. Samsung learned how to make them. As did HTC, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, OnePlus, etc, etc. Turns out, making smartphones is a very competitive business, but a lot of companies were good at it, at least for periods of time.
For example, Samsung flat out copied iPhone exactly almost.
Which iPhone?
https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone-pictures-1827.php
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9000_galaxy_s-pictures-311...
But I don't think the other players want that order to live forever, so we will see. I just hope we don't get WW3, and that's good enough for me.
And my point has nothing to do with Chinese or Dutch or European, even though those are the examples I used.
The main thing is that it was a mistake to sell vital industries, and some people are really hypocritical when other countries do something like this, but in this particular case they’re finding out reasons to side with the Dutch government. I just want consistency, it is seldomly okay to allow any other entity into critical industries.
We’ve recently seen a major reversal on China in particular, because it has dawned on people they were being played, not that they were the player.
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose."
We live in a "Rules Based Order" - one rule for thee, another one for me.
Here is an example how China raided and took over Chinese ARM subsidiary, along with all stolen western IP.
https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heis...
Nobody in their sane mind would allow a company like ASML or the likes to be purchased by competitors.
But they did it.
So it is true that the Western first world aligned countries have greater access to each others assets. And there is a dark network at play at trying to limit the same to second world and third world nations.
For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used.
Interesting parallel here with China recently invoking - for the first time - their own legislation from the 50's to ban rare earth exports for military uses.
Plenty of US companies ready and willing. They've finally gotten an administration that is of like mind on screw the environment and dig dig dig.
They’ll fall in line quickly enough.
How are we reminding China that the US is a big dog? By imposing tariffs? By demonstrating our ability to do work domestically that they believe us unwilling or incapable of doing?
What does this even mean, to be a big dog in the modern world? It seems more like a large ship listing to one side … if it collapses there will be a lot of small ships damaged in the wake.
I've heard this one before.
Remember, Mommy,
I'm off to get a Commie,
So send me a salami,
And try to smile somehow.
I'll look for you when the war is over ---
An hour and a half from now
“Ready and willing” is quite the turn of phrase.
Some of it is a different nature along the lines of "why mine yours when you can buy someone else's". You keep yours in the ground until you have to get it.
My understanding is that a large part of the issue is processing capacity/ability - not mining of the ore. In fact, a significant amount of ore mined in the US is sent to China for processing. I don't think it's a simple case of the US standing up some processing plants in 1-2 years. If that were the case, wouldn't you think it would've happened by now? Is US leadership that bad that they failed to address this risk? Or - more likely - is it because solving the issue will take a lot more than some quick investment?
This is a huge issue for the US MIC. Plans (e.g. with regard to Iran) are going back to the drawing board for sure.
Is US leadership that bad that they failed to address this risk?
I mean, quite obviously? Borne by the simple fact of... here we are discussing it?
It doesn't matter how easy, quick, or hard it is right now. What matters is leadership is so bad it was allowed to reach this point to begin with, and even a decade ago it was immediately obvious that it was a giant vulnerability that has not even started on beyond corrected in any meaningful way.
I’m so fucking glad I’m not on social media.
"In 1984, a German historian compiled 210 explanations historians had suggested for Rome’s fall, from lead poisoning and barbarian invasions to Christianity, moral decline and gout.
After studying dynamic civilizations such as Athens, Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic, I can attest that there is no single explanation. Each golden age had its own character and its own downfall."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 and https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-ye...
The fact of the matter is, they were strictly more technologically advanced than the classical Romans
No, they were more advanced in certain ways, but the original contention is correct that they were less advanced in others. Notably they were unable to build domes. They were also less productive, so less advanced in an overall sense.
The fall of the Roman Empire is a pop history trope at this point.
More than that, technology continued to evolve. The Romans had nothing like Medieval plate armor, for example. There are many examples of better tech from the supposed "Dark Ages".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medieval_Arabic_and...
with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire
While it's true that some technology declined in the West, it wasn't as dramatic as you've suggested. Popular media also often exaggerates it.
https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology/...
Adding USSR into the discussion greatly increases complexity of the discussion. From analysis I've read, central planning is supposedly fine when country doesn't have much industry, because to start things up, it can provide essential investments and starts organizing production. But when country is somewhat developed, efficiency starts to matter and top-down approach to decision making of central planning vs bottom-up decision making mechanisms of markets produce different results. Politics and other things are important factors too, but I think that would be too much for this discussion.
The main reason that it's mostly China producing them may simply be due to the fact that the volumes are so small that building your own industry is not really worth it.
According to this map, China has vastly more. But is there something special about China/Myanmar geologically? I guess being downstream of the Himalayas is something.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rare-eart...
"According to this map" is essentially meaningless w/out a map specific definition of "reserve".
The terms "reserve", "resource" and their variations are misused outside of technical literature that cites whether they are defined via a JORC or other classification.
The bias toward China in that map likely comes from two notes:
* "proven" reserves - as in tested and estimated to some higher standard, as opposed to "we know there's a lot 'over here' but we haven't spent $X million on a drill assay program yet.
* "controlled or owned" by China - Chinese companies are majority shareholders in joint ventures that source raw materials across the globe (they source concentrates from Australia, from Peru, from elsewhere, in addition to their home soil deposits). This means a number of maps might show all REE deposits owned by Chinese companies as on the books for China (as that is where much of the processing of concentrates occurs).
For interest:
North Stanmore in Western Australia has emerged as one of the world's most extraordinary heavy rare earth element (HREE) deposits, particularly for dysprosium and terbium in North Stanmore. (Sept, 2025)
https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/north-stanmore-heavy-rare...
https://www.australianmining.com.au/victory-unearths-world-c...
E: brushed up a little bit from a few month ago and AU just found some clay, because of course they did.
Who’s got the money?
The main reason that it's mostly China producing them may simply be due to the fact that the volumes are so small that building your own industry is not really worth it.
There's also an element of their production generating pollution and us preferring to think of ourselves as cleaner than that. We only use the rare earths.
Compare how desalinization is very cheap, but California prefers constant screaming about drought.
According to a just published article by the NRC newspaper[0], the owner wanted to use Nexperia's funds to finance another business (WingSkySemi) which was in financial trouble. He would have done this by making Nexperia place large orders for wafers it did not need. The article mentions Nexperia only requiring $70-80 million in wafers, while Nexperia would have ordered wafers from WingSkySemi with a value of $200 million.
In order to achieve this, the owner is said to have put strawmen without financial experience in place and fire European directors. When other directors raised the alarm about this, they were fired according to the article. This issue was raised to the Dutch government, which then intervened.
Have a look at the original article through google translate, it provides a lot of interesting and important details to this story.
[0] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/14/chinese-topman-gebruikt...
They rarely make decisions that I disagree with, even if I realize I usually don't have all of the facts. Business continuity, employees, shareholders, customers. Those are the priorities and management is definitely not acting with impunity. The shareholder angle here is an interesting one, that route has been stopped off preemptively it seems.
China, meanwhile has announced 'retaliatory measures', which seems a bit silly because that will just hurt their own exports, and shows that it wasn't necessarily Zhang that was the problem but someone much higher up in the party structure.
[1] https://www.worldstopexports.com/netherlands-top-10-exports/
Reagan promised "deregulation" and "get government out of business" etc, and had a very clear mandate to execute, which he did, IMO to our detriment, by doing things like telling the FTC to just let companies do whatever, and outright not enforce anti-competitive laws if you couldn't show "consumer harm", which explicitly meant you had to show prices going up before you could prevent the monopoly from forming.
What did people expect?
It was at that moment that Nexperia alerted the ministry of Economic Affairs
I would call that typical way to run business, perhaps they were making supplies for next three years, before tariffs kick in... Perhaps they were going to expand.
What's with all the throwaway accounts on this thread anyway?
I would call that typical way to run business
Then I suppose we should be thankful (or hope) that you do not run any sizable business.
I've been advocating for years that US prescription medications should require dual sourcing and at least 50% domestic production purely for security reasons. You can ramp up from 50% with multiple providers a lot easier than 0.
(Musk has been heavily criticised for pulling these kinds of shenanigans between Tesla, SpaceX, and X, but it seems like there are not enough shareholders willing to take him to task for it)
This information about misdeeds of the CEO looks like a very convenient excuse for the Dutch government, while another article published in the press claims that, according to newly published court proceedings, already at a meeting in June between US officials and Dutch officials USA had requested the removal of the Chinese CEO by the Dutch, as a condition for not enforcing export controls over Nexperia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/us-pressured-the-netherlands...
Both claims could be true, USA has pressured Netherlands to remove the Chinese CEO, then the Dutch have investigated the CEO to find a reason to intervene and they have found this dubious deal where he bought a double amount of wafers compared to the actual needs.
This deal may be abusive, but it looks rather mild in comparison with how most CEOs mishandle the assets of their companies. I doubt that there are many CEOs against whom a thorough investigation would not find such deals. Here at least he got usable semiconductor wafers, but many such deals are for valueless software or consulting.
I find the even milder circular financing of deals like nVidia investing in OpenAI to be concerning.
Update: Looks like China has retaliated:[1]
[0] https://tweakers.net/nieuws/240304/nexperia-ceo-bevoordeelde...
[1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexp...
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
China played a remarkably smart game. We let it happen.
People have been telling us for twenty years that this would happen and nobody listened until it was almost too late.
As soon as China tries to compete with the rich monopolies, the "free market" goes out of the window and becomes "free to do as we tell you".
As soon as China tries to compete with the rich monopolies, the "free market" goes out of the window and becomes "free to do as we tell you".
When China cannot compete with incumbents those protections also go up and when they can now people like you appeal to free trade (while ignoring existing protections). You are being overly charitable to one side here. Which is it? Free trade or Protectionism?
can now people like you appeal to free trade
You're assuming too much and, along with others here, acting like you've been hurt. "Free trade" is the mantra of Western economists and politicians since the time of Adam Smith, and it's been a ruse since then too. Read him.
When China cannot compete with incumbents those protections also go up.
They do, but not in the erratic manner, levels or timing we're observing here. China is a party of the WTO and they haven't broken any of its agreements, nor have they used any of its emergency clauses.
You are being overly charitable to one side here. Which is it? Free trade or Protectionism?
It's not either/or. I can tell you a third option that is worse than both of these - it's jumping from one to the other and back in an erratic manner as we are doing it now.
I could tell you something that's better than all of these too but I won't do it. I've been talking about it for many years, primarily as an alternative to free trade and I'm amazed that at this time, nobody seems to be aware of it. Like, what's the point of pointing out obvious truths over and over again with the same (lack of) result.
Adam Smith, and it's been a ruse since then too. Read him.
You should read Keynes as the primary opposing side to US during Bretton Woods, with strong support from most bankers at the time. The WTO has no answer to structural imbalances nor was ever intended to resolve such a matter.
The status quo you support is not grounded in economic literature than it is a incoherent mess that was created through political circumstances. Under a truly multilateral system of the ICU, China would have been severely disciplined years ago for its distortionary surplus actions.
Under a truly multilateral system of the ICU, China would have been severely disciplined years ago for its distortionary surplus actions.
Don't blame China for this, they provided what they were asked to provide, blame those who "failed to discipline them years ago". Go to the beginning of this thread where I pointed out who tried to stop the trend.
The status quo you support is not grounded in economic literature than it is a incoherent mess that was created through political circumstances.
The status quo is what reality is today. Punishing China has nothing to do with advancing the US economy, much less when it boils down to erratic tariffs motivated by speculation and crony business relations.
The status quo you support is not grounded in economic literature than it is a incoherent mess that was created through political circumstances.
This is so rich that I have to correct it again, the hard way:
The economic literature is an incoherent mess that was created through political circumstances.
Keynes is no exception.
Don't blame China for this, they provided what they were asked to provide, blame those who "failed to discipline them years ago"
The fact that you are referencing "they" means you don't actually know how the ICU and the Bancor works do you? Or any of Keynes' larger arguments regarding global macroeconomic stability.
Industrial and scientific espionage is another one.
Hacking companies is one more.
As soon as China tries to compete with the rich monopolies, the "free market" goes out of the window and becomes "free to do as we tell you".
Hence big tech cozying up to this administration, and all the attempts to ban AI regulation.
China won already, US is just trying to stop the bleeding
You could just add easily argue that the Dutch government has immense leverage over the US, since ASML controls the
Not really since the USA basically controls ASML. That's not even counting the USA's control over most of Europe especially the Netherlands.
So i wouldn't be surprised if they will announce first initial set of EUV test runs this year or early next year as a cherry on top of their "Made in China 2025" cake.
2. It's quite possible you are right about Chinese EUV capabilities - I don't have a clue myself as I don't work for NSA or CIA. On the other hand it's one more very big challenge in a field of big challenges and despite what the CCP says Chinese resources are very far from infinite and the clock is ticking demographically.
3. A set of EUV test runs would not impress me to be honest - a full blown production line of EUV generated chips would. The issue doesn't seem to be in doing EUV, the issue is to build systems that can sustain quality at volume.
I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something. That conforms to local regulations. But now The Dutch government says "we have this new power over you" and that is that. With the consequence presumably being export control on dutch tech, banning from their market, etc? Or were there any more hooks planted that make it easier to force compliance? For example -- and I assume this is not the case in the Netherlands -- in China there is a 51% ownership of the foreign company by a local company (which is more or less state controlled).
I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something.
It's not, it's a Dutch company, formed according to Dutch law, with headquarters in the Netherlands, that was bought by another Chinese company a few years ago.
Dutch law sets rules on how any company, but especially public companies (so-called naamloze vennootschappen) must be governed. Even if you own all the shares, by law you don't have unlimited and unchecked power in the company, you have to abide by governance rules.
Seemingly simultaneously with the government order, a suit was brought to the court enforcing these laws (the Ondernemingskamer) alledging that the CEO and owner were not abiding by them. The court documents are a bit weird to me as a non-lawyer, with Nexperia named as both plaintiff and defendant, so I'm not sure who brought it, but it might've been the government, who are named as a party.
The court agreed that the suit could have merit, and as an interim measure while the legal proceedings play out, has suspended the CEO and named a temporary director. It also suspended the authority of the owners over their shares (except for one), and assigned a trustee to manage them temporarily. The court did not actually rule on the contents of the suit yet, it only issued interim conservatory measures. We'll likely hear more about how the suit plays out over the next few months.
An interesting matter of contention in the suit is that the CEO/owner want the CLO to be suspended, while the other side asks the court to prohibit firing of the CLO. I presume there has been a conflict in the board, either leading to or caused by the government order.
The court documents are public by the way (in Dutch, obviously): https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/resultaat?zoekterm=nexperi...
OR vs CEO also explains the duplicate entries as they are both representatives of the company.
I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company.
It's worth noting that Nexperia is a spin-off of NXP (Dutch company) which itself is a spin-off of Philips' (Dutch company) semiconductor division.
It's also worth noting that Nexperia's Chinese owners (Wingtech) are at least partially state controlled.
And of course, the jobs disappeared from Germany.
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/KUKA-AG-436260/ne...
Note: Looking for more information about the distribution of jobs atm ( countries). But it's hard to find. Any resources?
But you're right. They still have jobs there, I didn't knew that.
Note: This is about the law Germany created afterwards: https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/alerts/germany-tightens...
They can have their day in an impartial court of law. If they're right they will prevail.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Industry_(Special_Measur...
(Not saying China is playing fair btw, just saying there's a vast amount of underused intellectual resources in Europe.)
The UK gov stepped in to stop a Chinese firm closing our steel mill. Capitalism wasn't made to handle large strategic foreign investments closing their own company at nationally inopportune moments.
It feels like a slow burn of embrace, extend, extinguish but playing out on global critical technology and industry.
What I don't see in the official announcement is the nature of the emergency in this case.
any idea what we the rationale/reason to pass that law in the first place? any specific endangered war resource at the time?
As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops
Why do you think this? The Netherlands economy seems be pretty good compared with other countries. Growth is slower but that's partially due to US tariffs.
Is it just a standard thing now to say "the government are idiots" or they are making huge mistakes. Don't you think they creates a long term issue where people are never satisfied and constantly electing a new government. Maybe this causes the government to focus on short term wins to avoid that.
Business with dictatorships must stop as soon as possible. In fact it should be forbidden. Nothing good comes out of that. I hope we will see more moves like this from democratic governments.
The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country. While nationalising something like an oil company is only about changing where profits are sent.
The Dutch taking ownership of this company is not to divert its profits, it's to prevent the weaponisation of the company against the host country. There is an expectation that the Dutch have reasonable evidence of this. It's also set against a background of the foreign country's other attempts of unprovoked interference.
The replies seem to miss the mark and provide examples where nefarious activities were engaged in the pursuit of profit, some other examples provided were further off the mark by citing examples of retaliation against nationalisation (which is the opposite situation).
This is why I state that they're difficult to compare. If the Dutch were claiming this company for a financial motive it would be the source of significant uncertainty in foreign investment. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
Exploiting a foreign country’s own resources such that the profits are sent to foreign owners to the point of impoverishment
I mean where would the West be if it wouldn't do exactly that in Africa, Southern America and surely other places (and did it in even more extreme ways, back when people didn't care that much).
ex. cocoa production in Africa, with European companies being the ones doing and profiting from it.
The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country.
What is your source for this claim? Wouldn't companies destabilize the host country to facilitate their own business?
Western companies have been destabilizing local regimes for centuries at this point. Companies in general are a convenient way to mask state power that pays for itself. Many of these companies were established in former colonies as a direct replacement for explicitly colonial resource extraction.
Searching online for examples I find Glencore, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Chevron (among others) have all recently engaged in bribery or even supported violent political groups abroad to protect their own interests.
The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country.
Do western governments use other methods to destabilise the host countries? What should be done about those?
The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country.
The 2004 book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins makes the US has.
The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country
where did you get that info? from cartoons? how old re you little npc?
It explores how western companies use the the Investor–state dispute settlement system to usurp the will of countries to control their own resources. ICC (International Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland) and the World Bank (via ICSID) are the main arbitration venues for this corporate bullying/neocolonialism.
Then of course, as soon as that arbitration is ignored/won then the genocidal defenders of democracy are activated.
If you pull the thread on many conflicts, at some point you will find these courts.
I'm not a fan of the Chinese government but I hope the Chinese firms/people involved use these same systems against the Dutch government.
nothing good comes out of that
One might argue that global connection through economic ties is what gave us thes last 50 years of relative peace. So even with talent/ip drain there's a solid humanitarian and cosmopolitan argument here that trade is just good for humanity even when "unfair".
I'm not saying thats the case here but I would not dismiss this as "nothing good comes out of that"
The past fifty years may just be an exceptional footnote. Fifty years is not a significant period of time and the peace we have endured has not been evenly distributed (nor does it appear to be stable).
WW2 was so horrific that Europeans were willing to do anything to prevent it again
But this is total childish nonsense. We gained 75 years of peace in Europe not because the war was terrible, but because the entire world was divided between the USA and the USSR. And, as it happened, these two countries decided not to fight each other in a full-scale war.
The reason we gained 75 years of peace is because France and Germany decided to form an alliance to prevent further conflict (considering they had just fought 2 wars in the space of 40 years), and, as a secondary goal, to reduce dependence on the US (de Gaulle being especially eager), starting with the Treaty of Rome, and evolving into the EU.
As long as western companies cannot freely buy companies in China the reverse shouldn't be possible, too.
Western countries aren't allowed to freely buy companies in western countries either.
Business with dictatorships must stop as soon as possible.
Why? Business is business.
Nothing good comes out of that.
What nonsense. You should check the wealth generation the past few decades. Had to take you seriously when you espouse such nonsense.
I hope we will see more moves like this from democratic governments.
You seem to have a bizarre and naive notion that this is a "democracy" issue. If china was a democracy, we'd have the exact same problem. Heck, you could make an argument that a democratic china would be far more aggressive it would be subject to populism. Russia is a democracy and it is fighting a war with another democracy. Most of the conflicts around the world are between democracies actually. I know the democracies you don't like, you just conveniently label "dictatorships". But saying so doesn't make it so.
The problem isn't democracy vs autocracy. It's a matter of power. White vs non-white. It's the fight over 500 years of established geopolitical order. It's why the fight isn't between the US and china. It's between "the west" and china.
And on that front, the rivalry with China is actively stoked. They’ve been a top trading partner. We could have a relationship based on cooperation not rivalry but our leaders are incompetent and adversarial. Still you have some US consumers who seem to want higher prices for themselves. At the end of the day it’s the defense lobby who will be profiting from chauvinism.
So you see, such businesses have been quite fruitful for the resources the West has gulped over the years.
A lot more corporate shenanigans within the complaint/appeal but the two biggies seem to be the US 50% trigger and NL gov board request.
[0]https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2...
But we do what they do, and China isn't even communist.
People just don't know what communism is. Calling yourself the communist party doesn't magically make you communist. You have to do communism, which they no longer do.
It's a very simple test. Can I own assets, such as a factory? If the answer is yes, you're not communist. China isn't communist.
The end of private property is an eventual goal but it’s not close to the primary issue in 2025. The actual fight is against imperialists and global capitalists. Private property can be a tool in that fight. Being revisionist like China still makes you a communist/Marxist.
It's why I also think it is possible to hold a pro-free-market pro-tariff position simultaneously without contradiction. Tariffs could be used to "level set" manipulation from foreign governments and make the incoming goods behave as if they were not manipulated (thus also reducing the incentive to manipulate in the first place).
Not sure this is how tariffs are being used in reality.
It would be nice if that was the case. Personally I think it has all the well-intentioned naïvety of a 14-year old "why can't we just abolish the military?!" pacifist.
Many people in the West have no idea what's going on in China. Western brands and investments are all over the place. Half the cars on the streets used to be European or American (and that has only recently changed, due to the rise of EVs).
Yet Europeans and Americans often complain, "Why can't Western companies operate in China?" Excuse me?
Western brands have investments, but are required by law to have a local partner, that learns the trade and eventually copies the product:
China bars foreign companies from participating on their own in many industries, but in some of those industries foreign companies can participate only by forming a joint venture with a Chinese partner. [..] Partnering with a Chinese business can be tricky for various reasons, so understanding to what you are agreeing is absolutely critical. This is especially true because the Chinese law, the Chinese government, and the Chinese courts will be heavily biased in favor of your joint venture partner in any dispute between your company and your China joint venture partner’s company. - https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/china-joint-venture...
Half the cars on the streets used to be European or American
And more than half the phones in Europe or America are Asian - what's your point?
The legal framework and the reality on the ground show a very different picture.
1. The Law Explicitly Allows It: China's Foreign Investment Law (effective since Jan 1, 2020) clearly states that foreign investors are permitted to acquire the shares, equity, or other similar interests of domestic Chinese enterprises.
2. The "Negative List" System: China uses a "Negative List" model. This means any industry not on the list is fully open to foreign investment, often up to 100% ownership. This list has been shrinking every year, opening up more sectors. For instance, all restrictions in the manufacturing sector were removed. While there are still restrictions in very specific strategic areas (like news media or rare earth mining), this is not a blanket ban by any means.
3. Real-World Examples of European-Controlled Companies in China:
You don't have to search hard to find major Chinese operations controlled by European firms. Here are just a few high-profile examples:
Automotive: German automaker BMW raised its stake in its Chinese joint venture, BMW Brilliance Automotive, to 75%. This is a landmark case of a European company taking majority control of a major automotive manufacturer in China. Similarly, Volkswagen owns a 75% stake in its EV-focused Volkswagen Anhui venture.
Chemicals: Germany’s BASF is building a massive new Verbund site in Guangdong. It's a €10 billion project that is 100% owned and operated by BASF.
Retail & Consumer Goods: All IKEA (Sweden) stores in China are operated by its wholly-owned subsidiary. French beauty giant L'Oréal and luxury groups like LVMH and Kering all operate through wholly foreign-owned enterprises in China.
Finance: German insurer Allianz established Allianz (China) Insurance Holding, the very first 100% foreign-owned insurance holding company in the country.
So, the idea that a European company "wouldn't be allowed" to buy a Chinese company is a myth. While the process involves regulations (just like any country), it is legally possible and happens frequently across many industries.
China imposes more trade and investment barriers, discriminatory taxes, and information security restrictions than any other country by a vast margin. - https://ecipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DTE_China_TWP_R...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025
And China also makes sure to appear open, using subtle instead of blunt tools, and concealing its influence operations - mister DeH40, with a 19 month old account, zero favorites or submissions, and a total of two comments, both in defense of China.
That data isn't just outdated, it's irrelevant. China's entire foreign investment law was rewritten in 2020. You're arguing against a reality that no longer exists.
And "Made in China 2025"? It's an industrial policy, like the US CHIPS Act or Germany's Industrie 4.0. It's only a sinister "takeover plan" when China does it?
Finally, drop the personal attacks. Attacking my account instead of the argument is a classic sign of a weak position. I'm not a state-sponsored bot, just a regular Chinese citizen who is tired of seeing these old myths spread around.
And more than half the phones in Europe or America are Asian - what's your point?
Actually, the US banned the most successful Chinese phone company the second it started gaining market share. At the time, it was the largest phone brand in Europe.
But my point is that European and American companies can and do invest and do business in China, on a massive scale.
In China, most locally manufactured brands seem to vanish after roughly two decades — whether in clothing, food, daily necessities, automobiles, or electronics. Yet, global brands such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Adidas, P&G, Unilever, Colgate, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi (collectively known as “BBA” in China), and even Nokia, dominate the market;
Interestingly, many European companies were eventually overtaken by their American counterparts — Nokia for example.
We’re not even talking about computers and smartphones—when it comes to these sectors, the U.S. simply won’t allow anyone else to take the lead. The market is dominated almost entirely by just a few platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
That way, the U.S. is free to control all oil resources in the Middle East and conquer new ones in Venezuela. The EU gets nothing but enemies and higher oil and gas prices.
In principle I'm against outsourcing or technology transfers to China, but please do it on you own schedule.
In principle I'm against outsourcing or technology transfers to China, but please do it on you own schedule.
In principle, the tit for tat policy with China should have been initiated 15 years ago. China has restricted its own markets in similar ways since at least that far back, and it was clear then, when they banned Google in 2010, that they were not playing by the same playbook as we were.
The U.S. doesn't control oil in the Middle East, that would be Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, etc, all sovereign nations with their own governments. It also produces more domestically than its own demand and is a net exporter of oil.
Also, not sure why the Ukraine war is the United States responsibility over the EU's responsibility given that its your next-door neighbor and its your eastern flank that would suffer if Ukraine were to fall to Russian control. EU, of course, partly responsible for enriching Russia to the point where it can afford such a war with its own purchases of gas while shuttering nuclear power plants for indescribable reasons.
The Google Facebook examples probably would hold better if the US hadn't axed TikTok, also, Google isn't banned in China, they refused to comply with censorship regulations and left themselves.
Rules only apply when the people that set the rules win, maybe China is to be blamed for seeing through this cruel world earlier.
Google even tried to crawl back with a search engine that did comply with Chinese laws put activist employees forced them to stop.
Both Microsoft and Apple fully comply with Chinese laws and are doing really well there.
If memory serves, China wanted to censor Google, Google declined (had a redirect to the Hong Kong site for a while), China blocked accessing foreign Google sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China has more.
The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China.
The news is coming out now, but it actually happened September 30th.
Global expenditure on 300mm fab equipment from 2026-2028 is predicted to be USD$374bn with regional breakdown as follows (totaling 100%):
China - USD$95bn (25%)
South Korea - USD$86bn (23%)
Taiwan - USD$75bn (20%)
Americas - USD$60bn (16%)
Japan - USD$32bn (9%)
Europe and Middle East - USD$14bn (4%)
Southeast Asia - USD$12bn (3%)
[1] https://www.semi.org/en/semi-press-release/semi-reports-glob...
Also: Even while ASML steppers are built in Netherlands, there are a lot of other non-photolithography tools needed to build a fab in addition to the ASML tools.
Netherlands AND Holland? Isn't that the same place?
Holland is part of the Netherlands. Not unlike how say Texas is part of the United States.
So in that regard the statement was redundant, yes.
Meanwhile China is trying to do all that domestically. They might even pull this off, but just like with their 7nm tech, they're unlikely to be able to do this economically.
You don't get into the China market without losing control.
The legal system there is fundamentally very bureaucratic - there are rules, but they're very different from the West. You need local help - and a lot of it. You see similar bureaucratic insanity in Japan, though I'm guessing there is just a lot more legal infrastructure for guiding foreign companies there.
When you run your business in China, China runs the copy of your business for you ;)
I do understand that we want to try to see "the same" in the stupidity of our politicians that let all of this happen just like that for many years, but we are different.
I agree that the West is in general different, as in this is more an exception than the rule. But being in the semiconductor industry, I'm fed up with the stupid rules we are dealing with since the 1st Trump admin. Even more stupid is the US foreign policy affecting EU companies much more than US companies.
In the US, the powers-that-be are often content to let markets, popular forces, and regulation shape foreign companies. In China (I'm no expert, please weigh in[1]) it seems that the CCP is very motivated to make foreign firms serve its industrial agenda while staying under Party control. That usually means insisting on Chinese ownership stakes or joint‑venture structures, so the state always has a foothold in the business.
In this way, politicians of both countries do find ways to "get what they want" from a foreign business -- even if they go about doing it differently.
[1] I'm not ignorant of geopolitics; I do read about China, but focusing on it is not part of my job nor education.
US was posturing to ban China access to Arm. Ultimately, it led to a ban on using TSMC for Chinese companies instead. There is no real justification to do a blanket ban on all Chinese companies except a state-sponsored way to to slow China down in AI race.
Securing a Chip industry independent from China, Taiwan and the US has to be the top long term security interest. I only hope that the EU can use it's power to make things like this more feasible and to keep Europe independent from US/Chinese interests.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
Nexperia was formed because back in 2017 (if I remember correctly) Qualcomm wanted to buy NXP. So NXP wanted to look more attractive to Qualcomm shareholders and sold its more low-tech business unit to Chinese investors. That acquisition didn't go through because of the tensions between US and China during the first Trump admin.
NXP has been trimming fat since its formation from Philips Semiconductors and American or Chinese companies are buying whatever business unit they can grab. They pretty much buy it for the IP and the customers. Once they get the IP they usually fore the whole team and shut dient operations in NL.
Nexperia wasn't doing this though. They had no interesting technology to steal oe transfer to China to begin with.
NXP has been trimming fat since its formation from Philips Semiconductors
Honestly it appears to me that Philips themselves have just been losing talent/marketshare/I'm not even sure what, causing their gradual decline. The Philips I grew up with was an electronics powerhouse. Today apart, from their healthcare department (and maybe their slightly overpriced lighting department via Signifify), they don't seem to be very "active", and that makes me sad.
I once did a brief consulting stint at what was then considered one of the most innovative, startuppy departments of Philips Healthcare, and it was by far the slowest-moving, least productive software team I've ever seen.
They had just "ended a sprint" when I came in, and 3 months later they still hadn't started another. People were just fooling around. There was a rule that talking about work during lunch was a no-no (so we talked about hockey and babies, the only subjects that 2+ people had in common). Testers were a separate team, and they refused to test things, no matter how small, without being allocated months of dedicated time to first make a detailed 50-page docx "test scenario". The mini product I was assigned to work on took 3 months to complete but the 5-page spec had been argued over for the past 18 months and signed off by, in total, 8 managers and 6 directors. I was the only person shipping anything of actual business value during that period (not because I'm so great, just because I was the only one asked to do anything of business value).
This is now a decade and a half ago. With the series of number-crunching Excel MBAs leading Philips since then I quite doubt that this will have changed for the better.
In part this is a large organisation thing that happens everywhere. See 2001 Google vs. current Google for example. I don't know why Philips ended up being so bad in particular.
The break-up of Philips is not a bad thing. Many viable components have been spun off in various ways and the business is essentially fine, just not under the Philips name and management.
In 1989 Philips introduced a new financing structure that required Natlab to secure two-thirds of its budget through contracts with Philips' product divisions. This marked a major change from its prior model, where funding came directly from the corporate board.
Anything that wasn't "commercially viable" according to the penny-polishers with MBAs was abandoned. The dumbest move ever. Fundamental research can't be outsourced, and never has immediate commercial value.
I did my PhD project in collaboration with NXP research which used to be the semiconductor division of Natlab. At every project meeting there were at least 2 mid level managers from 3 business units funding the projects+ 2 mid level managers from the research department + 1 engineer overseeing the technical work. So, it was 8-9 managers + 1 engineer + 1 PhD student. They were all chill and didn't roadblock anything for me, apart from all business units deciding to do their own development on the same topic because they didn't trust anyone else. So I was mostly left to myself because the money was already given but they lost interest. They were still attending the meetings as a break from the other meetings I thought.
The 50% ownership by a sanctioned entity was a reality for a while, and was an issue as soon as the purchase. This didn't change recently. So, this action should have been part of the pre-purchase review (CFIUS in the US...I assume there is an equivalent in China). On the face of it, this all could have been avoided by having a non-sanctioned entity (including another random Chinese company) own enough of the company to get sanctioned entity ownership below 50%.
China bans rare earths, us forces eu to be against China.
So I’d expect more escalations from China.
and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
FWIW, EU countries are still sending more money to Russia for oil than they send Ukraine in aid. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more...
Modern global economies are complicated.
It is stupid that they put themselves in that position, but they've also greatly reduced their dependency as the war progressed.
With the current trade war and their own domestic troubles, China cannot afford to alienate other foreign markets, hence why this is the prime time to drive concessions against them.
Is it hypocrisy of you decide to punch back after getting punched? Not really. And China certainly was the much more protectionist than the EU for the three decades.
We gladly put you at the helm of our little fleet, but our ships must all sail in the same direction. Otherwise, who can say how long your stay with us will last. It's not personal, it's only business. You should know, Godfather
— The late venerable Don Lucchesi
It detours from the mafia line of story and instead dives into the darker maelstrom of high politics.
It is from this movie that I learned about Michele Sindona, about Propaganda Due, and in large gained an undying interest in Cold War and geopolitics. Of course I'm just an amateur who only knows English, Mandarin and a bit of French (for Cold War study I'd say all major EU languages are important), and too much source material was buried in history, awaiting for all relevant parties to die so that it has a chance to go into daylight again.
I wouldn't call that "taking control" necessarily. Taking "some" control maybe. But in a reasonable way.
Wingtech Chairman Zhang Xuezheng had been immediately suspended from his roles as executive director of Nexperia Holdings and nonexecutive director of Nexperia after the ministerial order, according to the filing.
Not sure what firing the boss is, if not taking control...
E.g. at IT service provider Centric, where the majority owner and CEO had a mental breakdown. Employees suffered from his delusions, but it also threatened to affect customers. The trustees aren't government agents, they just run the business as a going concern, minus the mismanagement (in this case, minus the mental illness).
US law also provides for a CEO to be ousted and a trustee to be appointed in cases of mismanagement or fraud. I wouldn't call that taking control, in much the same way as bankruptcy proceedings appointing a trustee don't amount to government taking control.
Now, the article refers to a filing made by former management. That filing is conflating the order and the firing of the CEO. The ministerial order didn't fire the CEO, that was a separate action filed by the company's works council and happened before the order was issued. The reason for the firing lies mostly in mismanagement and conflicts of interest.
The ministerial order is much more limited in scope, allowing the government to roll back decisions detrimental to the company - especially transfers of assets.
It's a shame that CNBC is just parroting the former management's objections, rather than you know, doing any reporting.
In both the order and the legal case, it's clear the ownership/management wanted to shut down the company and take the assets. The company was also not doing OK financially, and this kind of thing reeks of bankruptcy fraud (i.e. fraudulent conveyance).
The kind of tech nexperia makes isn't rocket science but I could imagine they produce some chips that are used in essential supply chains. So rather than wait for the bankruptcy and the fraud to happen, the company was restricted from transferring assets.
So the wording "takes control" is misleading. "subjected to additional oversight" is perhaps too wordy but more accurate. "put on a leash" might be a good way of putting it.
That governmental decision was surely not taken lightly, it's a significant move with high risk of increasing geopolitical tension...
The Chinese propaganda machine is already making lots of waves about how NL is no longer a democracy and how this dings NL reputation abroad.
The Dutch have put restrictions on Wingtech to not make certain changes (sale or move of assets, intellectual property, company activities, employees) for a year. That should give you enough to chew on I think (and it is public knowledge). Specifically the IP and assets bits are in focus here, more so because the parent company is on a watchlist. Note that they not only kicked out the CEO - which in itself is an earth shaking move for a company this big - they also took control over the shares.
The UK used its National Security & Investment Act (2021) to order divestment of Nexperia’s Newport Wafer Fab in Nov 2022. The UK ordered them to sell 86% of the stake due to National Security concerns
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/acquisition-of-ne...
TIL Shockley, one of the original pioneers of semi-conductors and Nobel prize winner, was a total shit. His staff hated him so much that the key players left and started a new company (Fairchild). He later became a eugenics crank.
CFIUS oversees transactions that might give foreign entities control of U.S. businesses. This includes mergers, acquisitions, or takeovers. It also reviews investments in critical technologies, infrastructure, sensitive data, and specific real estate deals. At CFIUS' recommendation, the President may suspend or prohibit transactions deemed threatening to U.S. national security.[0]
If a US company is blocked from being acquired, presumably the CFIUS considers the company to be "nationally strategic."
In an unlikely hypothetical, I'm curious what the US would try to do in this scenario:
1. US company A agrees to be acquired by foreign company B.
2. CFIUS recommends blocking the acquisition under nation security grounds and the US president executes the block.
3a. US company A threatens to shut down all operations if the block is not lifted.
3b. US company A immediately destroys all assets irrevocably in spite.
In 3a, my guess is that the US would cook up or find some legal scheme to take over the company.
In 3b, the US has no warning and the company succeeds in denying the US something the US considers a strategic asset, although to its demise.
It reminds me of the Invention Secrecy Act.
In a nation that holds private property to be more sacrosanct than most nations, it's super interesting when the the government forcibly takes property. Things like eminent domain never feel natural in the US.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investmen...
[0] https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/EN/Presse...
This is hypocrisy! How dare they do to chinese what they criticize chinese for?
Followed by:
They always did that. The west was always trying to subvert rules they didn't like!
And finally:
The west made these rules to work for them and them only!
That repeats in various variations, over and over.
Here is my take. The only conclusion from this, is that everyone was dishonest, everyone is dishonest, and we should stop trying to even pretend that we could be more honest. All wrongs are equal, there is no difference between a dictator and inept president. There is no difference in intent, purpose or long term goal. Freedom is just a word, it doesn't exist. Truth is abstract concept, without meaning.
I don't know about you, but I don't think I can subscribe to that.
Instead, I would side with NL government on this. Because there is such a thing as lesser evil. Call me a hypocrite, if you'd like, but at least I'm consistent.
For me a clear YES this means a sound regulatory environment that will protect my company and me from abuse.
Some analysts said the move by the Dutch ministry resulted from a new rule issued by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, the agency responsible for export control policies. The rule, effective September 29, imposed new restrictions on entities which are at least 50 per cent owned by enterprises on the Entity List or the Military End-User List – two blacklists issued by the US government.
They have a not huge but very nice line-up of GaN fet devices too. I'd been looking through their line-up here just lack week!
Just fun to see what's on offer here. I couldn't find a latest listings by manufacturer for Nexperia, which is one of my favorite Mouser views.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/14/chinese-topman-gebruikt...
The Chinese CEO of Nexperia, Wing, tried to divert company funds to finance his own chip factory, WingSkySemi, appointing straw men to key positions and firing European executives, which led to a major internal conflict.
Sam Cooper is the Canadian journalist who has tackled Chinese corruption in Canada after the Vancouver model of money laundering in Vancouver became notorious.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexp...