Been there/done that - Sweden was unjustly bullied by China and got next to no support from EU. That was a mask off moment for some of us. It seems that for member states like Sweden and the Netherlands, we're supposed to just pay a lot of money in order to get toll-free access to the internal market.
Edit: I would welcome a split into EU North and EU South. Sort of like Aldi North and Aldi South.
EU North: UK (welcome back!), Norway (hello!), Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Estonia.
EU South: The other countries.
Seeing international media overthink this as some kind of deep strategy is mildly amusing.
They fell after a year because of that but are still in power until a next one can be formed. They've been like this for 6 months due to our excruciatingly slow election system that requires months to prepare an election. When that finally happened the results weren't much better.
The EU is getting worse though yes with their damaging of the gdpr, trying to force chatcontrol etc.
According to the Nexperia 2024 annual report [1], they had just committed to _invest_ in the Hamburg site for their WBG/SiC/GaN production lines. Closure of the fab in Nijmegen was actually reported by NXP[2] not Nexperia - different companies.
[1] https://www.nexperia.com/dam/jcr:fc307e7e-e159-482c-b21b-0f9... [2] https://bits-chips.com/article/closure-of-nxps-nijmegen-fab-...
The intervention by the Dutch government at the Nijmegen-based chipmaker Nexperia is being suspended.
These were all precipitated by the US BIS50+ ruling that threatend to sanction any Chinese subsidiary of any company on the Entity list , which increaed the list from something like 1500 to 30k companies overnight with Nexperia in the mix.
After the recent US-China talks and the suspension of the rule , the Dutch have in kind made movements to backtrack.
However at this point its only the Ministerial action that has been suspended i.e the SECOND action.
The FIRST action by the Business courts still remains in place , so the CEO/Board is still outed.
The ousting of the CEO wasn't. He was pulling a lot of resources to China and also buying wafers that weren't actually used to fake business.
This was one of the reasons they got on the entity list in the first place and it's very shady if not illegal. But in China it's very common practice, the government even does it itself, building mega cities that remain empty because the prices are too high to afford. Just to prop up their economy stats.
Nexperia was never going to stay under government control, the government isn't in the business of making chips. But dumping the CEO was a good decision (and can't be overturned by the government because it was a court decision)
>This was one of the reasons they got on the entity list in the first place and it's very shady if not illegal.
It actually was the main cause , if one follows the timeline:
June 12 Dutch-US meet: "Minutes of the meeting state... a key point for US is 'that no externally visible measures have been taken. It is understandable that a divestment takes time but the fact that the company's CEO is still the same Chinese owner is problematic'..."
Sept 30: Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs issued an order barring the firm and its global subsidiaries from changing assets, staff, or IP for a year.
Oct 1: US entity list was expanded "Foreign subsidiaries 50% or more Chinese-owned are now also subject to US export restrictions. As a result, Nexperia also needs licenses to purchase US components, software, or cloud services"
Days later, Dutch and German executives at Nexperia petitioned a court to suspend Wingtech’s CEO Zhang Xuezheng and place the firm’s shares under temporary court management.
From the Court Docs [1] a) US telling Nexperia to ditch its Chinese leadership if it wants a waiver from the entity list b) Chinese CEO's clearly erratic behaviour
One does not get put on the US Gov Entity list for corporate shenanigans , its a Geo-Political instrument to discipline allies and punish enemies.
As far as the company buying excess capex , this would be shady maybe not illegal.
By analogy if Satya from MS tomorrow decided to buy excess Azure capacity for XboxLive and channeled the biz contract to his own AI startup buying from Azure - would it be shady? yes . Rising to the level of removing him , the board, confisicating all Xbox IP under state control would be absurd.
[1] https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2...
The EU desperately needs some leadership willing to stop the US and China from continuously pushing it around on every single issue. An independent Chip supply chain is an existential necessity for the EU.
So they shoot themselves in the foot and now, they are also extracting the bullet, without anesthesia. Funny movie, with more sequels to come.
Everything looks so wonderful in this dream but, the wake up, will be harsh.
lysace•2mo ago
Why wouldn't CCP/Beijing just be emboldened by this? Why do the dutch feel the need to show goodwill towards CCP?
(Edit: I see a lot of turbulence with this comment. I wonder why people seem to think it's invalid. The Chinese government runs these strategic companies very closely. China is not a democracy. It is a de facto dictatorship run by the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. Nothing of this really a controversial opinion.)
RAMJAC•2mo ago
lysace•2mo ago
RAMJAC•2mo ago
China: Great, two can play this game, how about you now lose access to X,Y,Z that may be manufacturing, fabs, investments, rare earths, Chinese markets, etc.
Netherlands: Hmm, that costs more than this company by an order of magnitude. Take it.
This isn't taking into account back channel dealing, conflicts of interest or really anything besides a surface level reading of situation. They had them by the balls.
tgv•2mo ago
rikafurude21•2mo ago
cowl•2mo ago
Barrin92•2mo ago
They're not showing goodwill, they're desperate. Why did the Netherlands (read the US) think it's in any position to seize a company from China when the entire auto industry is dependent on Chinese chips?
I can't help but laugh at this, as a European even. China unlike our esteemed continent isn't going to have its businesses commandeered around by Washington, we should take a lesson in self-respect from them. It's also not on us to dictate what system of government they run their country on. Thankfully someone isn't putting up with Washington's crap.
throw310822•2mo ago