Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/13/dutch-government-takes-control-of-chinese-owned-chipmaker-nexperia.html

by piskov • 9 months ago

729 572 9 months ago

Related: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/chinas-wingtech-says-dutch-court-freezes-control-nexperia-amid-national-security-dispute

rickdeckard2• 9 months ago

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...

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

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.

rickdeckard2• 9 months ago

Related, the announcement of the Dutch government: https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2025/10/12/minister-of...

rzerowan3• 9 months ago

alt link https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/ch...

dang• 9 months ago

Thanks, we'll add that to the toptext as well.

Doxin5• 9 months ago

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...

rzerowan3• 9 months ago

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.

Doxin5• 9 months ago

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.

tmnvix4• 9 months ago

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.

dylan6046• 9 months ago

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

walkabout• 9 months ago

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.

trhway6• 9 months ago

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.

this_user• 9 months ago

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.

fakedang3• 9 months ago

This is it.

infinet2• 9 months ago

Netherlands imported more CeO2 (a rare earth) from China than any other country, with 517 metric tons during the first half of 2025.

legacynl2• 9 months ago

Who cares what their legislation says. Xi and ccp can change that at will at anytime.

nonethewiser• 9 months ago

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).

q3k3• 9 months ago

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.

Denvercoder92• 9 months ago

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...

toephu2• 9 months ago

Also did the police actually raid the company and physically take it over? I didn't see this anywhere mentioned.

NicoJuicy4• 9 months ago

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.

q3k3• 9 months ago

Did they? As far as I know Kuka is still fully controlled by Midea.

em-bee2• 9 months ago

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.

NicoJuicy4• 9 months ago

Tweet at the time: https://x.com/JacklouisP/status/1957432021388837117?t=HJgXNK...

miohtama• 9 months ago

Could be worse. Could be TikTok and threat to national security.

javiramos• 9 months ago

nincompoops... learned a new word today

ChrisMarshallNY• 9 months ago

It has an interesting etymology: https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2014/09/words-...

itopaloglu839• 9 months ago

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.

HPsquared• 9 months ago

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

incompatible• 9 months ago

This has always been the case, to some degree, but I think it will be a much bigger factor now that so many have accepted that Neoliberalism is dead and no longer give it lip service.

like_any_other6• 9 months ago

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.

mc32• 9 months ago

Of course the preferred option is what the Chinese do which is to never let that happen in the first place or if you do allow foreign investment always keep a 50.1% stake in the entity and exfiltrate any tech from the venture you need .

bdangubic10• 9 months ago

USA is nationalizng Intel and under this administration more of the commie shit is coming :)

chrisco2552• 9 months ago

It's not a "free market" to allow a foreign communist country to own or control your companies or resources, whether strategic or not. The entire arrangement is governed by diplomacy between two states. FWIW, it never has been the case that everyone was a fan of "the world is flat" theory of capital and labor markets.

next_xibalba3• 9 months ago

The Chinese heavily subsidize their companies and have large government bureaus that strategically guide industries over long time frames. For example, the CCP has been on a long, intentional path to destroying all international solar manufacturers via subsidies, dumping, etc.

This is not how free markets function.

FpUser• 9 months ago

But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose."

We live in a "Rules Based Order" - one rule for thee, another one for me.

roughly• 9 months ago

It gets a lot less contradictory when you realize the principles are window dressing for the interests.

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.)

onetimeusename• 9 months ago

That has happened and not a lot came of it. Venezuela nationalized American oil projects under Hugo Chavez. If by hell breaking loose you mean law suits I guess so.

hopelite• 9 months ago

That’s not quite correct. It wasn’t the foreign entity purchasing something, or they wouldn’t have allowed all the foreign entities purchasing things. It is more accurate to say they didn’t care as long as they thought they had the advantage and letting the foreign entity buy critically important companies and industries was a means for grooming them or working them to serve your interests. What “America” has realized is that their plan to develop China into an asset/ally simply did not work, nor that they’ve totally empowered them and likely the Chinese were intentionally sharing false data to give false understanding of how they were doing overall.

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.

hulitu• 9 months ago

Nobody in their sane mind would allow a company like ASML or the likes to be purchased by competitors.

But they did it.

noobermin2• 9 months ago

The age of globalism and unfettered free trade is over, and good riddance.

skinkestek• 9 months ago

But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.

Russia has nationalised a number of Western companies since 2022, even McDonalds.

Nothing happened.

mschuster913• 9 months ago

Everybody is a fan of free access and capital markets, until a foreign entity purchases something of importance.

The problem with China is that the "free access" was always one-sided as we did not insist on reciprocity - not for the Internet, not for tourism, not for companies, not for goods.

We gave China everything - we allowed their people to study at our universities, we allowed their tourists, we gave them virtually full access to our economic market, we gave them access to the Internet, we gave them seriously discounted shipping rates and customs exemptions.

And look where that got us. They lock in their population in a way reminding me of the GDR/Stasi era - if you're not an obedient citizen, you don't get permission to travel, everything is subject to surveillance and the one will of the Party -, they use their access to the Internet to steal, hack and run secret police organizations while locking their population behind the Great Firewall, they buy up our companies and shift crucial knowledge back to China. And in the meanwhile, good paying jobs in our countries were lost en masse to China, what used to be high-quality products that would last many years if not decades got replaced by China made ultra cheap junk.

chvid2• 9 months ago

There is a difference between blocking a sale on natsec grounds and first allowing a sale, taking in billions of investment, and then 7 years later nationalizing the company on natsec grounds.

nashashmi• 9 months ago

When these kinds of procedures were first promoted, China was a non-communist entity, aligned with western countries. After China was overtaken by CCP, China is now considered “adversary” after being called “non-aligned”, in similar vein to Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Not even Cuba is on this list.

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.

retor• 9 months ago

Did it take over ownership as well or just the administration of the business?

UpsideDownRide• 9 months ago

Case in point Chile and Salvador Allende.

rcxdude2• 9 months ago

Europe isn't really a hotbed of this kind of thing, anyway. In fact, a frequent criticism of the EU from socialists is that the free competition rules generally prevent nationalising companies, and this is a little unfair because a lot of countries in the EU have nationalised industries that have been grandfathered in.

insane_dreamer4• 9 months ago

Fair points, but in this case the company has not been nationalized. The Dutch gov can veto certain decisions, but that's not at all the same as the company becoming an asset of the state (nationalization).

Yizahi• 9 months ago

What do you mean "were to do"? It's already happened, probably many times, it just a single human can't keep up with all world news of every industry.

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...

1oooqooq• 9 months ago

thanks for the context.

any idea what we the rationale/reason to pass that law in the first place? any specific endangered war resource at the time?

emmelaich2• 9 months ago

It's a bit pathetic that European countries do not have the tech capacity to compete equally without having to do stuff like this.

(Not saying China is playing fair btw, just saying there's a vast amount of underused intellectual resources in Europe.)

Doxin5• 9 months ago

You do realize this is china trying to abscond with European tech? Not the other way around?

WhyNotHugo• 9 months ago

The Goods Availability Act invoked in this case, grants power to requisition goods in case of emergency situations, and owners must be compensated.

What I don't see in the official announcement is the nature of the emergency in this case.

Ref: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0002098/2021-07-01/

mmarq• 9 months ago

We have a similar law in Italy, but, not having much advanced technology foreigners are willing to buy, the government uses it to prevent foreigners from buying washing machine manufacturers.

trymas• 9 months ago

"knowledge leak" (w/e that means exactly)

At least in my tongue - this would mean “brain drain”.

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

More likely: IP drain. IP was specifically mentioned in the complaint.

bpye• 9 months ago

This seems similar to the UK government taking control, though not ownership, of British Steel earlier in the year [0] as the Chinese owner was expected to shut down their blast furnaces, an action that could not be easily reversed - if possible at all. One difference is that the UK government rushed through new legislation [1] to allow this, vs the Dutch government using powers they have had for decades.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Industry_(Special_Measur...

karlitooo• 9 months ago

Get control of foreign company with specialist knowledge in a domain you want to dominate, drain its cash and shut it down.

BartjeD2• 9 months ago

The company was warned multiple times prior to this happening, to adjust course. They didn't. Now they got into hot water and claim they were unjustly nationalized.

They can have their day in an impartial court of law. If they're right they will prevail.

pembrook• 9 months ago

Warned multiple times over what exactly?

contravariant• 9 months ago

I'm also inclined to believe the reason for the decision was intelligence and not politics, because if it was political the parties responsible likely wouldn't shut up about until the next election. As of now there's been effectively 0 reaction from any political party. Though maybe that will change.

Doxin5• 9 months ago

We've also currently got an outgoing cabinet, meaning they aren't really supposed to make major decisions outside of emergencies. That has always been one of those things where it's basically up to the honor of the politicians to actually not make major decisions as far as I can tell, so I'm unsure whether this is politicians politicianing or if there IS some emergency requiring intervention. I'm sure it'll all get more clear in the coming days.

daan-k• 9 months ago

Some new information has just emerged in the Dutch press.

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...

scotty792• 9 months ago

Seems like business as usual. It's just that the industry it operates in is kinda sensitive subject for everybody right now.

tinco3• 9 months ago

I am sort of surprised we even have an arm of government quick and authoritative enough to be able to intervene here. I always assumed the government would just let any frogs boil.

powerapple2• 9 months ago

this theory would contradict with the national security reason used by the government though. I have read in Chinese sources that they plan to remove the European directors, reasons I don't know.

teekert4• 9 months ago

This Dutch article also adds a lot more context, what the Dutch government did starts to make more and more sense and would for sure be something the Chinese would have intervened in if the situation were reversed. [0]

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...

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

What is interesting here is that for obvious reasons the Chinese do not seem to understand - or be able to understand - that NL actually has an independent institute for handling such disputes that will operate with a fairly high degree of impartiality. Abusing funds of one company and jeopardizing its existence in order to prop up a non-related entity abroad is precisely the kind of situation why we have this institution in the first place. Mismanagement is - regardless of who the shareholders are - also something that we frown upon here and there actually is a mechanism to directly intervene in the case of such actions. Seeing the 3 top financial people replaced with strawmen and funneling large amounts of money abroad to buy things the company does not need is a surefire recipe for intervention. This would have also happened if the CEO had been dutch and the shareholders had been dutch, we actually had such a case in the last few years where the top guy (founder, even) at one of our larger IT companies lost his marbles.

adrian_b2• 9 months ago

The press is full of contradictory information, so it is hard to guess which is the truth.

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.

Braxton19805• 9 months ago

As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops

Why do you think this? The Netherlands economy seems be pretty good compared with other countries. Growth is slower but that's partially due to US tariffs.

Is it just a standard thing now to say "the government are idiots" or they are making huge mistakes. Don't you think they creates a long term issue where people are never satisfied and constantly electing a new government. Maybe this causes the government to focus on short term wins to avoid that.

Already__Taken• 9 months ago

In my completely uninformed opinion I think China is taking their toys and going home.

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.

piskov2• 9 months ago

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.

piskov2• 9 months ago

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...

masfuerte• 9 months ago

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

lawlessone• 9 months ago

afaik there was the added danger there that if the blast furnaces are turned off its very difficult /impossible to start them again.

brazukadev4• 9 months ago

This excuse could be used by many countries to seize European companies controlling strategic national resources

justinclift• 9 months ago

And it might even be valid too.

octo888• 9 months ago

Let's hope so

jsiepkes• 9 months ago

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.

tartoran• 9 months ago

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?

Longlius• 9 months ago

And which firms in China are controlled by European entities?

constantcrying4• 9 months ago

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.

DiogenesKynikos9• 9 months ago

European companies have had massive investments in China for decades now.

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?

evolighting• 9 months ago

I don't know what you are talking about

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.

grues-dinner• 9 months ago

Sell your industry to private equity, this is what happens. Someone who values it will take it up. Many such cases.

isaacremuant• 9 months ago

It's ok. It's fine when the EU does it. It's only wrong and against capitalism when others do it. Like protectionism.

saubeidl• 9 months ago

Why is "against capitalism" == wrong? Maybe it's right because it's against capitalism.

VagabundoP• 9 months ago

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.

dylan6046• 9 months ago

they are exporting to Russia on the sly

is it really on the sly though?

dmix• 9 months ago

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.

holoduke• 9 months ago

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.

corimaith9• 9 months ago

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.

constantcrying4• 9 months ago

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.

thewebguyd2• 9 months ago

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.

bgnn5• 9 months ago

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?

constantcrying4• 9 months ago

Firstly, that wasn't "the same government". Secondly, better course correct now than never.

filloooo2• 9 months ago

Hope you would be as excited when other countries start to follow the lead.

constantcrying4• 9 months ago

Of course. Securing Europes independence is extremely important, other countries should follow and seize more Chinese assets.

binarymax2• 9 months ago

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.

hermitcrab3• 9 months ago

I read it recently. I thought it was going to be a bit dry and heavy going. But it was a really good read.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

meekaaku2• 9 months ago

Also highly recommend Apple In China

rdl• 9 months ago

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%.

tnt128• 9 months ago

Negotiation leverage. Had they prevent the purchase in the first place, they won’t have anythings to negotiate now.

markus_zhang9• 9 months ago

Probably the case. The Chinese probably knew about this too and willingly came forward.

bsder• 9 months ago

I don't understand why this suddenly happened

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.

throwaway-0001• 9 months ago

Us placed parent company Wingtech on US Entity List before. Then us probably forced Netherlands to do this.

China bans rare earths, us forces eu to be against China.

So I’d expect more escalations from China.

thomasdeleeuw• 9 months ago

Definitely US pressure. NL is always eager to get on the good side of the US, even if they get nothing in return. For example participation in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Gaza today.

markus_zhang9• 9 months ago

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

dcrazy• 9 months ago

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. :)

mmaunder• 9 months ago

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.

markus_zhang9• 9 months ago

Yeah there are so many memorable quotes.

Luker88• 9 months ago

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.

like_any_other6• 9 months ago

It must have slipped by me at the time - what happened with China and ARM?

devnullbrain3• 9 months ago

The Arm China CEO went rogue and spun it off as its own company. ARM HQ were unable to fire him, as he had physical possession of the company's seal stamp. Reading between the lines, the Chinese government chose not to intervene for multiple years.

aurareturn2• 9 months ago

Which came from the US sanctioning Huawei because Huawei was making better chips than Qualcomm and Cisco.

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.

rasz• 9 months ago

Not better, just cheaper copies. And all it took was mining Nortel to death and then moving on to mining Cisco itself.

amelius2• 9 months ago

How long until we're all learning Chinese in order to better understand their datasheets.

bgnn5• 9 months ago

Can't you say the same for the West though? This news is about a Chinese company's control being taking over by a Western government.

mk895• 9 months ago

In no way this is comparable, come on.

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.

jauntywundrkind• 9 months ago

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.

Iulioh• 9 months ago

From my experience it's a lot of automotive stuff

h45gJaqk• 9 months ago

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.

Denvercoder92• 9 months ago

The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China.

The news is coming out now, but it actually happened September 30th.

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

Correlation != causation.

chrisco2552• 9 months ago

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.

vachina4• 9 months ago

Ukraine-Russian conflict is a result of US instigation. Totally their responsibility.

filloooo2• 9 months ago

People like to play the victims, nobody else wanted to buy these unattractive companies back then, but once these companies are turned around or eventually fail, suddenly they are of national importance, we were ripped off.

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.

throw58753• 9 months ago

One point to clear up, China did not ban Google. Google left China because they refused to comply with Chinese data sovereignty laws.

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.

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

The NL authorities are on the record saying that they did not act under foreign pressure.

misiek08• 9 months ago

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…

brazukadev4• 9 months ago

It is funny that there are more people blaming China than the shareholders that made trillions of dollars.

curseofcasandra• 9 months ago

Easier to blame a foreign villain than to hold the shareholder class accountable.

mns• 9 months ago

I don't think people are blaming China. You can see this from all the extremist movements in Europe. People are blaming politicians and the "elite". They gave away for free all the technological advancements and knowledge to China to make huge profits and become filthy rich, and now they complaining that no one is buying their expensive outdated cars and other goods that people can't afford because they don't have decent jobs any more and the economy is bad. The only goal with outsourcing everything to China was to make as much money as possible for themselves, with no regard for the future and how this will affect our economies in the long run, but that doesn't matter when you are rich, for now.

zagfai• 9 months ago

And you will find that half of knowledge made by Asian.

bgnn5• 9 months ago

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.

user_7832• 9 months ago

NXP has been trimming fat since its formation from Philips Semiconductors

Honestly it appears to me that Philips themselves have just been losing talent/marketshare/I'm not even sure what, causing their gradual decline. The Philips I grew up with was an electronics powerhouse. Today apart, from their healthcare department (and maybe their slightly overpriced lighting department via Signifify), they don't seem to be very "active", and that makes me sad.

skrebbel3• 9 months ago

This has been going on for decades.

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.

notlisted• 9 months ago

Philips 'unalived' any chances for massive future revenues when they killed off Natlab (in spirit, not just in name). Philips Natlab was the Bell Labs of the Netherlands, even Europe perhaps.

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.

derelicta• 9 months ago

Okay. Now do that for most major Dutch companies please.

tonyhart7• 9 months ago

so is the company that taken over gonna get compensated or its just nation takeover for free????

potato37328422• 9 months ago

Even if they get compensated when the .gov buys your stuff it's never a fair price.

gitaarik2• 9 months ago

They are not being taken over. The Dutch government says it can now reverse or hold back decisions made within the company if they are deemed damaging to the Dutch or European production. I assume the law is written in a way that allows the government to only intervene if it is for such things. A judge would ultimately decide whether it is, if it gets to that point.

dhx• 9 months ago

Europe's projected semiconductor manufacturing equipment expenditure from 2026-2028 is a rounding error.

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...

motoboi• 9 months ago

yeah, but those machines are built in Europe. Most in Netherlands to be exact, but Holand too.

55873445216111• 9 months ago

Netherlands AND Holland? Isn't that the same place?

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.

buyucu• 9 months ago

Nor for long. If the Chinese didn't already have incentives to break ASML's monopoly, they do now.

throwaway091• 9 months ago

Expect more of this to come, it's an unstated goal of the Chinese Communist Party to deindustrialize the West, the UK had to intervene too a few months ago to stop them from destroying their steel producing capacity.

SalmoShalazar• 9 months ago

The west is doing a fine job at deindustrializing all by itself.

mk895• 9 months ago

Well, when you read things like this [0] you wonder if they have not reached it yet? I mean, they are producers and sellers now.

[0] https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/EN/Presse...

barnabyjones• 9 months ago

I'm not seeing any mention of the Entity List ITT, which seems like the real reason. Via SCMP:

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.

gitaarik2• 9 months ago

The title is misleading. The Dutch government says it can now reverse or hold back decisions made within the company if they are deemed damaging to the Dutch or European production. I assume the law is written in a way that allows the government to only intervene if it is for such things. A judge would ultimately decide whether it is, if it gets to that point.

I wouldn't call that "taking control" necessarily. Taking "some" control maybe. But in a reasonable way.

mk895• 9 months ago

Wingtech Chairman Zhang Xuezheng had been immediately suspended from his roles as executive director of Nexperia Holdings and nonexecutive director of Nexperia after the ministerial order, according to the filing.

Not sure what firing the boss is, if not taking control...

bux93• 9 months ago

Firing a company's boss and appointing a trustee is uncommon, but it happens.

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.

Surac• 9 months ago

I smell a loose loose situation ahead. Nexperia will have problems sourcing there materials in the future and Europe will sit on a husk of the former company. China is not unheard of starving things they do not benefit from

amai• 9 months ago

As long as western companies cannot freely buy companies in China the reverse shouldn't be possible, too.

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.

crossroadsguy• 9 months ago

You do realise USA is not the sole beneficiary of global destabilisations and installing of puppet regimes and overthrowing, et cetera. The West in general has been. USA, as the tip of the spear, is seen first, if not as the tip of the iceberg :)

So you see, such businesses have been quite fruitful for the resources the West has gulped over the years.

flumpcakes• 9 months ago

I agree with you, unfortunately the west does a lot of business with dictatorships as they are oil rich or China.

mtrovo3• 9 months ago

While I share the sentiment expressed, I highly doubt the general public would be as supportive if the roles were reversed, like if a 3rd world country attempted to nationalize an investment from a Western nation, particularly given the history of numerous nationalization attempts in Latin America with very public Western involvement in coups.

ragebol• 9 months ago

They're not nationalizing though

quitit2• 9 months ago

I think they're difficult to compare.

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.

smashah• 9 months ago

This is the premise of the book "Silent Coup".

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.

ahmetrcagil• 9 months ago

How delusional must you be to think any western civilization can afford to stop all trade/business with china. Entirety of western civilization is currently propped up by chinese manufacturing.

tchalla2• 9 months ago

I’m all for level playing fields if they are level. Everyone flex their muscle in different ways. What unfair advantages do you think the USA and EU have but China doesn’t?

wraptile• 9 months ago

nothing good comes out of that

One might argue that global connection through economic ties is what gave us thes last 50 years of relative peace. So even with talent/ip drain there's a solid humanitarian and cosmopolitan argument here that trade is just good for humanity even when "unfair".

I'm not saying thats the case here but I would not dismiss this as "nothing good comes out of that"

cma256• 9 months ago

You could argue that point but you would need evidence which showed trade with dictatorships resulted in peace in Europe. To that point, my gut reaction is that peace in Europe is a product of internal politics, MAD, American imperialism, and global trade (in that order).

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).

grafmax2• 9 months ago

We’re dictatorships by the rich. The US doesn’t even care about the semblance of democracy any more. There is no moral basis to such appeals. Consider Saudi Arabia. It’s geopolitical.

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.

hearsathought• 9 months ago

As long as western companies cannot freely buy companies in China the reverse shouldn't be possible, too.

Western countries aren't allowed to freely buy companies in western countries either.

Business with dictatorships must stop as soon as possible.

Why? Business is business.

Nothing good comes out of that.

What nonsense. You should check the wealth generation the past few decades. Had to take you seriously when you espouse such nonsense.

I hope we will see more moves like this from democratic governments.

You seem to have a bizarre and naive notion that this is a "democracy" issue. If china was a democracy, we'd have the exact same problem. Heck, you could make an argument that a democratic china would be far more aggressive it would be subject to populism. Russia is a democracy and it is fighting a war with another democracy. Most of the conflicts around the world are between democracies actually. I know the democracies you don't like, you just conveniently label "dictatorships". But saying so doesn't make it so.

The problem isn't democracy vs autocracy. It's a matter of power. White vs non-white. It's the fight over 500 years of established geopolitical order. It's why the fight isn't between the US and china. It's between "the west" and china.

hvb22• 9 months ago

China is now exposing export restrictions so anything made in china can no longer be exported

https://nos.nl/artikel/2586411-china-legt-chipfabrikant-nexp...

d_taylor• 9 months ago

Free market is like a luxury restaurant, everyone loves to eat there, but not everyone wants to pay the bill.

eneas• 9 months ago

What do yo think is the product or tehcnology that Nexperia can leak to China and forced uncle Same to leverage ASML control of Netherlands? The manufacucture aparently analog electronics a it was divested from NXP.

rzerowan3• 9 months ago

Update from the Amsterdam Court of appeal[0] , as expected large amount of pressure from the USG as well as some pressure on the CEO after the latest US 50% rule that triggered the RE restictions. - US telling Nexperia to ditch its Chinese leadership if it wants a waiver from the entity list. - The NL gov putting pressure on the CEO to introduce a new supervisory board to make sure there are no links to China.

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...

chvid2• 9 months ago

There is basically a straight line from this to the new Chinese rate earth controls.

clarionbell• 9 months ago

Reading this discussion, I can't help but feel a somewhat odd narrative:

"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.

Mr_Minderbinder• 9 months ago

...according to a Google translation.

Can they really not be bothered to hire human translators? You would expect as much from a high profile news source like CNBC.

kragen• 9 months ago

Maybe it's not a cost thing but a speed thing. You don't want to get scooped by another English-language news source.

FrustratedMonky• 9 months ago

Intel?

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.

ArnoVW2• 9 months ago

update on NRC (Dutch newspaper), based on pieces that have been submitted to the courts

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.

newsclues• 9 months ago

https://www.thebureau.news/p/chinese-ceo-fired-european-exec...

Sam Cooper is the Canadian journalist who has tackled Chinese corruption in Canada after the Vancouver model of money laundering in Vancouver became notorious.

stackedinserter• 9 months ago

There should be nothing China-owned in Western countries.

djoldman• 9 months ago

I've often wondered about where the lines would be for a similar issue in the USA:

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...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act

singularity2001• 9 months ago

Can we take back Kuka and Abb as well please?

goobatrooba2• 9 months ago

Kuka must be one of the three biggest strategic mistake the German governments made in 30 years (the other being gas dependence/NorthStream and keeping coal running rather than investing the same funds in renewables). Really sad but irreversible as they are now fundamental to the Chinese economy and any knowledge and parents are long gone to China.

chrischen• 9 months ago

Why allow the sale of a nationally important company if they weren't willing to let it go? Seems like eating your cake and having it too.

amelius2• 9 months ago

Can't imagine they did this without the US forcing them.

nikolay• 9 months ago

The writings on the wall: no sane person should put money in European banks or invest in Europe.

Palmik• 9 months ago

Did you hear about what the US Government is planning with TikTok Inc., the California headquartered company?

goobatrooba2• 9 months ago

Government intervenes to stop parent company from milking and killing this local subsidiary. Does seem like a consistent and sound decision that every government (should/would) have taken.

For me a clear YES this means a sound regulatory environment that will protect my company and me from abuse.

wj10000• 9 months ago

It is said that it is because of selling chips to Russia.

Drblessing• 9 months ago

It's so over. War in a decade.

Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

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