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.
Everybody is a fan of free access and capital markets, until a foreign entity purchases something of importance.
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.
After what I learned in the last five years, first the pandemic, then Gaza, I dont believe anything, absolutely nothing, from "western" explanations, "news channels", "newspapers", certainly no politicians but also no bureaucrats or officials, nothing.
I only look at actual actions and data and private citizens and actual scholars who wrote enough to gauge if they are knowledgeable and trustworthy from examining their past writings. Anything official or even with a whiff of "officiality" is at best unbelievable, if not countersignaling.
PS. Exception maybe FT, some macro research services like Gavekal, and science focused media. Even technology focused stuff is polluted now with the demented western anxiety and inferiority complex about China.
EU and west finally TRYING to protect their market the way China is doing it all the time. They tax, ban, espionage everything beneficial to their society.
“Protect their market” - And yet the U.S. and Europe are richer than ever.
It’s hilarious seeing the US oligarchs distracting from the fact that they’ve transferred massive amounts of wealth from the broader society to themselves by blaming every one else.
There is a fair argument to protect strategic industries and actions like these are probably needed, but let’s not pretend the “markets” are at risk because of anything China is doing, which is essentially giving Americans and Europeans actual stuff in return for pieces of paper.
Well if I'm from EU and if I know my government doesn't do espionage and all sorts of nasty things, I'd really be very worried. They (the government and its agencies) are supposed to do the nasty jobs, and it is very incompetent if they don't do so.
communism is actually exactly the opposite of that. this is rutheless capitalism 101 from china vs religious left/right fights of the west boosted by not in my backyard individualism.
West lived for too long for too good, to start believe that they can do whatever, and live good.
Economic Nationalism is not Communism by any sense. Nor is responding to mercantilism.
But the CCP explicitly considers themselves Marxism-Leninism with and their internal beliefs and government structure is structurally follows that.
We consider them Communists and they consider themselves Communist. They do not consider us Communist and we don't either.
You're trying to create a false conflation here and stir division. I'm interested in whose interests comments like yours really reflect. It's certainly not the truth.
You can call it Economic nationalism all you want, but these are similar principles that were applied in authoritarian states like in Fascist/Nazi times.
I don't care if they are Communists - we call them like that to say "they're authoritarian", however, we're failing to see where we (West) are getting. In order to "defend" our democracy we're becoming increasingly like them.
To think that all that it takes would be to change our lifestyle NOT to buy anymore 5 pairs of low quality shoes per year or so, but 1 or 2 good ones, maybe made by your neighbour. Which is exactly how I grew up with, until someone told us that we need to buy a load of cheap crap, otherwise you're not cool.
> the CCP explicitly considers themselves Marxism-Leninism with and their internal beliefs and government structure is structurally follows that.
> they consider themselves Communist. They do not consider us Communist.
And you know all this because of your deep study, in the original language of course, of the CPC, their internal factions, and the collected writings in their leading policy journals, I assume, yes?
Or dare I even ask did you get this from some 250 word limit editorial in the "wall street journal"?
Yeah, the next step is to actually think "they are all potential enemies, we should produce here and be independent, so in case there is a war we can make it". Autarky is how Fascism began.
So what exactly are you learning in this case from the actions, the data, the private citizens or the scholars, that is so different from "Western" explanations?
In this particular case? Nothing yet, it is too fresh. For now it is just another datapoint.
From other such episodes together?
That all the western homilies of "demokwafee" "caputalishm" "mahkit fweedum" "wool of louw" "yumin wightz" "fweedum of expeshun" etc are just nothing but BS. As soon as it gets inconvenient or the table is turned, they are dropped like a hot potato.
Got me fooled for the first quarter of my life. Good on you.
Now the mask is off. Now I know who or what Im dealing with. Seen enough, tyvm good luck
I think that's fine. High politics is always very nasty, and any written contracts are supposed to be teared apart. I think the elites of whatever countries are mature enough to eat it.
Regarding us, the human resources, it is irrelevant however we think.
That's not some s** that someone made up. They/We created an unstoppable beast. They thought that China would be like India or Vietnam or so. Nope.
You name it, they build it.
We can only "regulate" it - see what Europe has come up with to justify it - with the CO2 nonsense, "human rights" and all that. More regulations are the only way to prevent to get your market over flooded by products that you can't possibly build at that speed and cost (and not necessarily quality, but finally, most of what we use come from there and aren't MacBooks good? or fridges/TVs/phones, etc).
That’s a myth. Yes, we allow them to move faster—much faster—but it’s simply because their government is more efficient.
Western society, in contrast, runs on a kind of religion. People follow a few belief systems: socialism, right-wing conservatism, and perhaps liberalism as a softer sub-flavor.
Here’s the fun part: China learned the hard way that no single dogma—whether communism or anything else—is worth worshiping if it leaves people hungry. They’ve mixed communism, socialism, and raw capitalism, using whatever tools best serve their progress. Ruthless goal achievement.
Meanwhile, Western society has turned the left-versus-right divide into something resembling the conflict between major branches of Islam—where factions despise and fight each other. It’s extremely foolish.
It's soolish, like any blind reglion following. And yeah, with this divide we have, we all become religios == stupid.
It's not a myth - China wouldn't be in this situation without Nike/etc. going there in the 80's to "reduce" costs (to actually increase their profits). That triggered the whole chain. They thought they could just jump ship when the prices would increase, but what they didn't expect was that they had a guy that instead of getting just fatter and fatter (like many leaders in the world who finally become corrupt etc) actually had a vision for his country, and it's working out. It's the best implementation of the boiling frog metaphor.
About the rest of the post - I would say it's a bit more complicated than just black or white.
> About the rest of the post - I would say it's a bit more complicated than just black or white.
Yes, I think that was his point as well. Policy is a set of tools, and depending on the current state of the system there is a right tool for the the job,with, of course, a set of tradeoffs. Discarding tools "of the right" or "of the left" is foolish.
> 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.
That whole REE thing is more of a scare tactic than anything. REEs are really not all that rare, and the current imports of REEs into the US are worth around $200-250M annually. That is millions, not billions. It's actually a laughably small amount.
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.
Dollar value is not the point. For the US MIC this matters a lot. There are not really any ready replacements for some vital weapons components at a time when US weapons stockpiles have been heavily depleted.
I always wondered how the large unified world of Roman Empire with running water and sewer fell apart (and backwards) into multitude of small feudal pieces with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire. I think our modern civilization is probably at the beginning of similar process.
I think we are fine in term of infra -- I don't work as a civil engineer, but considering companies in my city repair the roads every year /s they probably retain the knowledge.
How easy is the machinery and tools needed to keep all the infrastructure running? Earth movers are pretty maintainable and barely depreciate. Survey tools though? They have gotten famcy right? Water management has gone quite high tech in some ways. I could see them falling apart kind of like when some hospitals had to revert to paper tape logs. It didn't scale anymore.
Exactly. Building roads and aqueducts were empire-level knowledge skills in Ancient Rome, performed by the army legions. Thankfully they're highly localized skills today.
How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands
Are you tracking that harvesting REM is a nasty business with a lot of “don’t look” environmental impacts? As such, most countries don’t do it, or have an infrastructure for it.
I've seen US numbers along 70-80% is imported. That leaves 20-30% domestic. Some of the REEs are 100% imported, so that's a different issue. But you seem to be implying that the US is 100% importing all REEs with no domestic production at all. That's not true. Yes, some production is slowed due to environmental issues. 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. You have some small production just to keep the know-how, but you keep the stove down to a simmer from a boil.
> 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.
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.
Sounds like the OR (ondernemingsraad) apparently wants to get rid of the CEO for incompetence which is very interesting. It is extremely hard to prove (in a court of law) but a valid reason. I assume they were doing all kind of shady things if they go that route. (Havent read the Court Docs, it is a guess)
OR vs CEO also explains the duplicate entries as they are both representatives of the company.
Nexperia was also spun off to placate Chinese regulators back when Qualcomm wanted to acquire NXP, and then after the spin off the Chinese regulators still refused to approve the acquisition.
And that the two collaborate closely on all kinds of projects, and that NXP (the former owner of the business unit that became Nexperia) and Nexperia (the company that is the focus of this action) are both customers of ASML.
Maybe pressure from the US gov? As a negotiatingtactic vs China - remeber the moves against MotorSich in Ukraine some years back , where the deal was win-win for both but Washington put the kibosh on it and ultimately got destroyed by Russian offensive.
Since the speed/urgency and unusual application of the law as you mention , mean extraodinary actions must have quite extraordinary causes.
In any case still too many unknowns in the story , hopefully clarity ensues soonest.
Believe it or not, but the dutch government has agency. It's not impossible for US pressure to be a factor, but I think it's more likely the management of the company was planning to move production to china or something like that. That'd (rightly!) spook the government into some quick action, especially given the political climate around Russia seemingly not being content with having their war confined to Ukraine.
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
The US has immense pressure on the dutch government, given their control over ASML . Its US big tech and semi design studios that determines who will need to buy EUV from ASML. Given ASML is not allowed to do business with China, Russia etc.
You could just add easily argue that the Dutch government has immense leverage over the US, since ASML controls the leading edge fab technology that underpins Nvidia etc. It seems more to me like a highly profitable partnership that neither side can credibly threaten to withdraw from.
Ultimately the Dutch, like for instance the Australians, are a rounding error compared to China and a pawn in a bigger game. At least the Dutch can "hide" behind the EU.
So there will noise but this won't stop China' rise and it won't stop Europe's decline, either.
Either way, it cannot be stopped, China will develop independent technology sector because they can and they have no other choice. They don't trust the West and cases like this make such attitude understandable.
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?
Germany implemented something similar like this after China took over Kuka (industry leading robotics) and practically build an entire industry of robotics in China after that.
the jobs didn't disappear (yet). they grew from 13.000 in 2014 before midea took over to 15.000 in 2024. maybe they could have grown more in germany if midea hadn't taken over. who knows.
Time to quote one of my favourite lines in the Godfather franchise. Probably totally unrelated.
“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”
I couldn’t place this quote, so I googled it and learned it’s from Godfather Part 3. Bold choice to take your favorite quote from that particular movie. :)
Oh lord no. Pacino’s Scream made acting history and is of the finest scenes to come out of the Strasberg acting ecosystem. Critics gonna crit, but there are some remarkably good things about that film.
I'm currently blazing through "Chip War" and can't put it down. This news is fascinating in that context. I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't read it.
I don't understand why this suddenly happened (except if asked by the USG in response to the recent scare/reality over rare earths).
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%.
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.
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
That will not happen. But yes, you are right that this decision was not taken lightly, I've only heard of one other such move in the last 50 years or so.
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.
50 years of sending all the knowledge to China and now sudden realization that „data is the value”. Work was cheap, but we paid in IP and tech as a whole.
It’s great to see how long term is China strategy and how well they execute it.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China. Using The Netherlands to fall into the sword would fit with the general tactics of dumping the Ukraine war on the EU and trying to sour their relations with China.
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.
Let's be real here, a European company wouldn't even have been allowed to buy a Chinese company in China and have the level of control as in this case in the first place.
Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.
I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.
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.
You are 100% correct. Free Trade hasn't been disproven, only the inane notion that one should pursue unreciproval free trade with a countries that perform mercantalism against them.
The consumer isn't everything, the worker does matter just as much.
There are many companies which the Chinese government could target in retaliation. In China foreign companies are usually minority partners in some ventures with some Chinese company.
Great. Absolutely outstanding from the Dutch government, to not let China dominate Europe however it wants.
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.
> Great. Absolutely outstanding from the Dutch government, to not let China dominate Europe however it wants.
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.
I think its fine to have national and strategic interests. China isn't someone that you can just trust, they are exporting to Russia on the sly and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
This is a tired talking point. If the EU stopped those imports abruptly they'd blow up their own economies and there would be chaos on the streets.
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.
The Euro stance on buying US weapons for Ukraine is probably the most dumbest strategic move or the century. Europe is losing at an alarming rate in many ways. I would be more concerned about the US if I were Europe.
Well clearly clinging free trade while others pursue protectionism/industrial strategy at massive scales against you isn't sustainable.
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.
Some more context from a dutch news source[0]:
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...
Everybody is a fan of free access and capital markets, until a foreign entity purchases something of importance.
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.
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."
After what I learned in the last five years, first the pandemic, then Gaza, I dont believe anything, absolutely nothing, from "western" explanations, "news channels", "newspapers", certainly no politicians but also no bureaucrats or officials, nothing.
I only look at actual actions and data and private citizens and actual scholars who wrote enough to gauge if they are knowledgeable and trustworthy from examining their past writings. Anything official or even with a whiff of "officiality" is at best unbelievable, if not countersignaling.
PS. Exception maybe FT, some macro research services like Gavekal, and science focused media. Even technology focused stuff is polluted now with the demented western anxiety and inferiority complex about China.
EU and west finally TRYING to protect their market the way China is doing it all the time. They tax, ban, espionage everything beneficial to their society.
China would do it without a blink.
“Protect their market” - And yet the U.S. and Europe are richer than ever.
It’s hilarious seeing the US oligarchs distracting from the fact that they’ve transferred massive amounts of wealth from the broader society to themselves by blaming every one else.
There is a fair argument to protect strategic industries and actions like these are probably needed, but let’s not pretend the “markets” are at risk because of anything China is doing, which is essentially giving Americans and Europeans actual stuff in return for pieces of paper.
Well if I'm from EU and if I know my government doesn't do espionage and all sorts of nasty things, I'd really be very worried. They (the government and its agencies) are supposed to do the nasty jobs, and it is very incompetent if they don't do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93Timor-Leste_...
Uh, you gotta understand that China has never been alone.
They would, they do and they did it. But we called them communists for doing so. ;)
Comrade Karremans it is then…
communism is actually exactly the opposite of that. this is rutheless capitalism 101 from china vs religious left/right fights of the west boosted by not in my backyard individualism.
West lived for too long for too good, to start believe that they can do whatever, and live good.
Economic Nationalism is not Communism by any sense. Nor is responding to mercantilism.
But the CCP explicitly considers themselves Marxism-Leninism with and their internal beliefs and government structure is structurally follows that.
We consider them Communists and they consider themselves Communist. They do not consider us Communist and we don't either.
You're trying to create a false conflation here and stir division. I'm interested in whose interests comments like yours really reflect. It's certainly not the truth.
You can call it Economic nationalism all you want, but these are similar principles that were applied in authoritarian states like in Fascist/Nazi times.
I don't care if they are Communists - we call them like that to say "they're authoritarian", however, we're failing to see where we (West) are getting. In order to "defend" our democracy we're becoming increasingly like them.
To think that all that it takes would be to change our lifestyle NOT to buy anymore 5 pairs of low quality shoes per year or so, but 1 or 2 good ones, maybe made by your neighbour. Which is exactly how I grew up with, until someone told us that we need to buy a load of cheap crap, otherwise you're not cool.
> the CCP explicitly considers themselves Marxism-Leninism with and their internal beliefs and government structure is structurally follows that.
> they consider themselves Communist. They do not consider us Communist.
And you know all this because of your deep study, in the original language of course, of the CPC, their internal factions, and the collected writings in their leading policy journals, I assume, yes?
Or dare I even ask did you get this from some 250 word limit editorial in the "wall street journal"?
> But we called them communists for doing so. ;)
What?
They view themselves as communists. Moreover, all these policies have nothing to do with communism.
You're not a murderer for killing in self defence. You are allowed to defend yourself.
Yeah, the next step is to actually think "they are all potential enemies, we should produce here and be independent, so in case there is a war we can make it". Autarky is how Fascism began.
"Super Sparta"
So what exactly are you learning in this case from the actions, the data, the private citizens or the scholars, that is so different from "Western" explanations?
In this particular case? Nothing yet, it is too fresh. For now it is just another datapoint.
From other such episodes together?
That all the western homilies of "demokwafee" "caputalishm" "mahkit fweedum" "wool of louw" "yumin wightz" "fweedum of expeshun" etc are just nothing but BS. As soon as it gets inconvenient or the table is turned, they are dropped like a hot potato.
Got me fooled for the first quarter of my life. Good on you.
Now the mask is off. Now I know who or what Im dealing with. Seen enough, tyvm good luck
> As soon as it gets inconvenient or the table is turned, they are dropped like a hot potato.
I am confused. Are non-“western” stars/nations better in this regard? I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say.
It doesn't matter if they are better or worse. Your own principles should not be things that shift based on what somebody else does.
I think that's fine. High politics is always very nasty, and any written contracts are supposed to be teared apart. I think the elites of whatever countries are mature enough to eat it.
Regarding us, the human resources, it is irrelevant however we think.
> inferiority complex about China.
That's not some s** that someone made up. They/We created an unstoppable beast. They thought that China would be like India or Vietnam or so. Nope.
You name it, they build it.
We can only "regulate" it - see what Europe has come up with to justify it - with the CO2 nonsense, "human rights" and all that. More regulations are the only way to prevent to get your market over flooded by products that you can't possibly build at that speed and cost (and not necessarily quality, but finally, most of what we use come from there and aren't MacBooks good? or fridges/TVs/phones, etc).
That’s a myth. Yes, we allow them to move faster—much faster—but it’s simply because their government is more efficient.
Western society, in contrast, runs on a kind of religion. People follow a few belief systems: socialism, right-wing conservatism, and perhaps liberalism as a softer sub-flavor.
Here’s the fun part: China learned the hard way that no single dogma—whether communism or anything else—is worth worshiping if it leaves people hungry. They’ve mixed communism, socialism, and raw capitalism, using whatever tools best serve their progress. Ruthless goal achievement.
Meanwhile, Western society has turned the left-versus-right divide into something resembling the conflict between major branches of Islam—where factions despise and fight each other. It’s extremely foolish.
It's soolish, like any blind reglion following. And yeah, with this divide we have, we all become religios == stupid.
It's not a myth - China wouldn't be in this situation without Nike/etc. going there in the 80's to "reduce" costs (to actually increase their profits). That triggered the whole chain. They thought they could just jump ship when the prices would increase, but what they didn't expect was that they had a guy that instead of getting just fatter and fatter (like many leaders in the world who finally become corrupt etc) actually had a vision for his country, and it's working out. It's the best implementation of the boiling frog metaphor.
About the rest of the post - I would say it's a bit more complicated than just black or white.
> About the rest of the post - I would say it's a bit more complicated than just black or white.
Yes, I think that was his point as well. Policy is a set of tools, and depending on the current state of the system there is a right tool for the the job,with, of course, a set of tradeoffs. Discarding tools "of the right" or "of the left" is foolish.
Yes, Fourier Transform never lies when you get it right. :-/s
Touché :)
> 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.
Probably not an awesome sign if multiple actors are invoking never-used laws that were created while WWII was still fresh on everyone's mind.
Let’s hope this one is still cold.
s/while WWII was still fresh/the cold war was
That whole REE thing is more of a scare tactic than anything. REEs are really not all that rare, and the current imports of REEs into the US are worth around $200-250M annually. That is millions, not billions. It's actually a laughably small amount.
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.
Dollar value is not the point. For the US MIC this matters a lot. There are not really any ready replacements for some vital weapons components at a time when US weapons stockpiles have been heavily depleted.
This is it.
I always wondered how the large unified world of Roman Empire with running water and sewer fell apart (and backwards) into multitude of small feudal pieces with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire. I think our modern civilization is probably at the beginning of similar process.
I think we are fine in term of infra -- I don't work as a civil engineer, but considering companies in my city repair the roads every year /s they probably retain the knowledge.
The infra today is internet and semiconductors which run it.
How easy is the machinery and tools needed to keep all the infrastructure running? Earth movers are pretty maintainable and barely depreciate. Survey tools though? They have gotten famcy right? Water management has gone quite high tech in some ways. I could see them falling apart kind of like when some hospitals had to revert to paper tape logs. It didn't scale anymore.
Exactly. Building roads and aqueducts were empire-level knowledge skills in Ancient Rome, performed by the army legions. Thankfully they're highly localized skills today.
Why stop there why not Indus Valley Civilization
How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands
Are you tracking that harvesting REM is a nasty business with a lot of “don’t look” environmental impacts? As such, most countries don’t do it, or have an infrastructure for it.
https://rareearthexchanges.com/best-rare-earth-mining-compan...
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.
US also needs all those factories and machinery to process the stuff.
USA does not have the refining capacity which will take another 8 years to build out.
So, you agree?
Agree with what? What is it that you think is a gotcha here?
Most countries don’t do it, including the US.
“Ready and willing” is quite the turn of phrase.
I've seen US numbers along 70-80% is imported. That leaves 20-30% domestic. Some of the REEs are 100% imported, so that's a different issue. But you seem to be implying that the US is 100% importing all REEs with no domestic production at all. That's not true. Yes, some production is slowed due to environmental issues. 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. You have some small production just to keep the know-how, but you keep the stove down to a simmer from a boil.
> 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.
So what just happened logistically?
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...
Sounds like the OR (ondernemingsraad) apparently wants to get rid of the CEO for incompetence which is very interesting. It is extremely hard to prove (in a court of law) but a valid reason. I assume they were doing all kind of shady things if they go that route. (Havent read the Court Docs, it is a guess)
OR vs CEO also explains the duplicate entries as they are both representatives of the company.
From what I've read it was the company's own board that asked for the ceo (Wing) to be removed.
> 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.
Nexperia was also spun off to placate Chinese regulators back when Qualcomm wanted to acquire NXP, and then after the spin off the Chinese regulators still refused to approve the acquisition.
Does that mean teensy mcu are now chinese owned? That was one of the last non chinese mcu available.
Perhaps also worth noting that ASML is also a spin-off of Philips.
And that the two collaborate closely on all kinds of projects, and that NXP (the former owner of the business unit that became Nexperia) and Nexperia (the company that is the focus of this action) are both customers of ASML.
Maybe pressure from the US gov? As a negotiatingtactic vs China - remeber the moves against MotorSich in Ukraine some years back , where the deal was win-win for both but Washington put the kibosh on it and ultimately got destroyed by Russian offensive. Since the speed/urgency and unusual application of the law as you mention , mean extraodinary actions must have quite extraordinary causes. In any case still too many unknowns in the story , hopefully clarity ensues soonest.
Believe it or not, but the dutch government has agency. It's not impossible for US pressure to be a factor, but I think it's more likely the management of the company was planning to move production to china or something like that. That'd (rightly!) spook the government into some quick action, especially given the political climate around Russia seemingly not being content with having their war confined to Ukraine.
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
The US has immense pressure on the dutch government, given their control over ASML . Its US big tech and semi design studios that determines who will need to buy EUV from ASML. Given ASML is not allowed to do business with China, Russia etc.
You could just add easily argue that the Dutch government has immense leverage over the US, since ASML controls the leading edge fab technology that underpins Nvidia etc. It seems more to me like a highly profitable partnership that neither side can credibly threaten to withdraw from.
Where else will they buy EUV from?
Ultimately the Dutch, like for instance the Australians, are a rounding error compared to China and a pawn in a bigger game. At least the Dutch can "hide" behind the EU.
So there will noise but this won't stop China' rise and it won't stop Europe's decline, either.
> 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.
Either way, it cannot be stopped, China will develop independent technology sector because they can and they have no other choice. They don't trust the West and cases like this make such attitude understandable.
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".
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
>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?
Could be worse. Could be TikTok and threat to national security.
nincompoops... learned a new word today
It has an interesting etymology: https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2014/09/words-...
Germany implemented something similar like this after China took over Kuka (industry leading robotics) and practically build an entire industry of robotics in China after that.
And of course, the jobs disappeared from Germany.
the jobs didn't disappear (yet). they grew from 13.000 in 2014 before midea took over to 15.000 in 2024. maybe they could have grown more in germany if midea hadn't taken over. who knows.
There are only about 3200 jobs in Augsburg (Germany), it's HQ?
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...
Did they? As far as I know Kuka is still fully controlled by Midea.
The regulation was created after that
Time to quote one of my favourite lines in the Godfather franchise. Probably totally unrelated.
“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
I couldn’t place this quote, so I googled it and learned it’s from Godfather Part 3. Bold choice to take your favorite quote from that particular movie. :)
Oh lord no. Pacino’s Scream made acting history and is of the finest scenes to come out of the Strasberg acting ecosystem. Critics gonna crit, but there are some remarkably good things about that film.
Yeah there are so many memorable quotes.
I'm currently blazing through "Chip War" and can't put it down. This news is fascinating in that context. I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't read it.
I don't understand why this suddenly happened (except if asked by the USG in response to the recent scare/reality over rare earths).
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%.
Negotiation leverage. Had they prevent the purchase in the first place, they won’t have anythings to negotiate now.
I don't know if something similar was feared, but I would like to remind people of what happened in 2020 with China and ARM.
You don't get into the China market without losing control.
Related, the announcement of the Dutch government: https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2025/10/12/minister-of...
A bit of history:
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.
Also real kicker from 2022:
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...
There was also some drama around British Steel back in April with the government seizing control from China:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg17g39x41o
afaik there was the added danger there that if the blast furnaces are turned off its very difficult /impossible to start them again.
Would be interested to hear some details on this from someone within Nexperia (or the automotive customers it supplied), if anyone is here on HN
That governmental decision was surely not taken lightly, it's a significant move with high risk of increasing geopolitical tension...
That will not happen. But yes, you are right that this decision was not taken lightly, I've only heard of one other such move in the last 50 years or so.
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.
50 years of sending all the knowledge to China and now sudden realization that „data is the value”. Work was cheap, but we paid in IP and tech as a whole. It’s great to see how long term is China strategy and how well they execute it.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
Nexperia makes quite a line-up of parts. Huge range of pretty low level things, various logic and bus small devices, mountains of transistors. https://www.mouser.com/manufacturer/nexperia/featured-produc...
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.
alt link https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/ch...
Thanks, we'll add that to the toptext as well.
The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China. Using The Netherlands to fall into the sword would fit with the general tactics of dumping the Ukraine war on the EU and trying to sour their relations with China.
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.
> The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China.
The news is coming out now, but it actually happened September 30th.
Correlation != causation.
This excuse could be used by many countries to seize European companies controlling strategic national resources
Let's be real here, a European company wouldn't even have been allowed to buy a Chinese company in China and have the level of control as in this case in the first place.
This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?
Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.
Just the religious belief that The Free Market will solve everything on its own and there should be no attempt to interfere with it.
I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.
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.
You are 100% correct. Free Trade hasn't been disproven, only the inane notion that one should pursue unreciproval free trade with a countries that perform mercantalism against them.
The consumer isn't everything, the worker does matter just as much.
And it might even be valid too.
And which firms in China are controlled by European entities?
There are many companies which the Chinese government could target in retaliation. In China foreign companies are usually minority partners in some ventures with some Chinese company.
> foreign companies are usually minority partners
So, uh, none?
Let's hope so
Great. Absolutely outstanding from the Dutch government, to not let China dominate Europe however it wants.
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.
> Great. Absolutely outstanding from the Dutch government, to not let China dominate Europe however it wants.
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.
The same government forced NXP to sell its RF power division to Chinese JAC in 2015 due to NXP and Freescale merger. Isn't that great?
It's ok. It's fine when the EU does it. It's only wrong and against capitalism when others do it. Like protectionism.
I think its fine to have national and strategic interests. China isn't someone that you can just trust, they are exporting to Russia on the sly and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
> 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.
This is a tired talking point. If the EU stopped those imports abruptly they'd blow up their own economies and there would be chaos on the streets.
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.
> they are exporting to Russia on the sly
is it really on the sly though?
The Euro stance on buying US weapons for Ukraine is probably the most dumbest strategic move or the century. Europe is losing at an alarming rate in many ways. I would be more concerned about the US if I were Europe.
Well clearly clinging free trade while others pursue protectionism/industrial strategy at massive scales against you isn't sustainable.
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.
Why is "against capitalism" == wrong? Maybe it's right because it's against capitalism.
Sell your industry to private equity, this is what happens. Someone who values it will take it up. Many such cases.
> extraordinary move to ensure a sufficient supply of its chips remains available in Europe amid rising global trade tensions.
It’s like they beg China to do something with Taiwan.