Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia
cnbc.com
Related: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/chinas-wingtech-says-dutch-court-freezes-control-nexperia-amid-national-security-dispute
cnbc.com
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...
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...
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...
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.
[1] https://www.worldstopexports.com/netherlands-top-10-exports/
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.
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.
(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)
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.
* how critical Nexperia's chips are to national security
* how much this bogus order would harm Nexperia
If the bogus order is sufficiently harmful to important chip production, this could harm national security.
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.
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.
The US did the same when it was young, along with large instances of exfiltrating tech (Samuel Slater, kicked off the American industrial revolution).
Tesla was the first to buck this trend.
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.
And the west always said that China is bad for doing it.
That’s the irony part.
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...
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.
Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
We live in a "Rules Based Order" - one rule for thee, another one for me.
But they did it.
This is not how free markets function.
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.)
It stops being free when government attacks economic activity, not when it promotes it.
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?
Russia has nationalised a number of Western companies since 2022, even McDonalds.
Nothing happened.
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.
You can’t socialize losses and privatize gains.
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.
"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."
If the west want's the other 7 billion to care, you're going to have to find some principles and live by them. Without exception.
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.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Industry_(Special_Measur...
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
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).
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...
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.
They can have their day in an impartial court of law. If they're right they will prevail.
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.
What I don't see in the official announcement is the nature of the emergency in this case.
At least in my tongue - this would mean “brain drain”.
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.
any idea what we the rationale/reason to pass that law in the first place? any specific endangered war resource at the time?
(Not saying China is playing fair btw, just saying there's a vast amount of underused intellectual resources in Europe.)
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.
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.
where did you get that info? from cartoons? how old re you little npc?
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.
Do western governments use other methods to destabilise the host countries? What should be done about those?
The 2004 book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins makes the US has.
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.
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).
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.
So you see, such businesses have been quite fruitful for the resources the West has gulped over the years.
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.
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...
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.
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.
I believe it's the lightsource, made by Cymer of San Diego before ASML took them over.
“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.
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.
I could easily see Nexperia chips appearing in Russian munitions in Ukraine setting this off.
It would also match charging the CEO with "incompetence". It would be pretty easy to win that in court if the chips are appearing in Russian weaponry.
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.
You don't get into the China market without losing control.
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.
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.
We're talking about the same ARM...?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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 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...
Can they really not be bothered to hire human translators? You would expect as much from a high profile news source like CNBC.
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.
Arguably the time to do that was in 2018, they could have blocked Nexperia from being aquired by Wingtech in the first place. But I supposed the second best time is now.
> 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...
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.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
Sam Cooper is the Canadian journalist who has tackled Chinese corruption in Canada after the Vancouver model of money laundering in Vancouver became notorious.
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.
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?
The US is also making moves to protect/control supply chains.
However different countries do it, there is a realization that some industries have a strategic impact.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexp...
I wouldn't call that "taking control" necessarily. Taking "some" control maybe. But in a reasonable way.
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's very helpful.
EDIT: is this behaviour common with Chinese companies in Europe? Do they buy to lead companies to shutdown?
For me a clear YES this means a sound regulatory environment that will protect my company and me from abuse.
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, 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.
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.
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.
The news is coming out now, but it actually happened September 30th.
"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.
It’s like they beg China to do something with Taiwan.
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.
is it really on the sly though?
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.
[0]: https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/EN/Presse...