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Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

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Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that action is perfectly fine. But it is then hypocritic to claim one is more justified than the other

> and that action is perfectly fine. But it is then hypocritic to claim one is more justified than the other Not really. Everyone was extending courtesies to China, but China opted to unilaterally reject the notion thay others could receive the same benefits they were enjoying. Now you're seeing this sort of courtesies being pulled for the first time. And you opt to frame this as hipocricy?

No one is clean in this. Now, the thing is that China did not allowed all companies in and after 10-20 years said: yeah, now you need a local partner. It was like this from the beginning (and it is not the only country in the world that required this, to have a local partner with 49 or 51 percent stake in the company). So all the companies that rushed into China were aware from day one that they need to share technology and know-how with the Chinese.

I think the question is: did China ever took over a foreign company because "national security" or whatever perceived risk?

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Let's have a quick recap of two of the things we've already tried:

Isolationism sucks. You have a domestic industry but it's not allowed to sell to other countries in retaliation for you doing the same to them, so it's small and consolidated and when the domestic providers are correspondingly terrible the trade barriers inhibit you from using the foreign ones.

"Free Trade" (but not actually) is even worse, because you take down your own trade barriers nominally in exchange for others doing the same, and then some of them don't. They subsidize their industries so that the global industry consolidates into one country and then if that country sucks you're in even worse shape because it's also a single point of failure and subject to foreign political forces.

What we should be doing isn't going back to trade barriers, it's creating sufficient tax incentives to sustain a domestic industry for strategically important products and then letting other countries do the same and consumers choose which company they want to buy it from. Because then you don't have trade barriers but you do have both domestic production and competition.

The price is that companies in those industries would essentially be paying lower taxes than they currently do or receiving some subsidies in order to make them competitive with the other countries doing something equivalent. But maybe that's not the worst of the three options.

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#453
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 vir…

You're talking about it as if it was a bug, it was not. I'm pretty sure a generation of MBAs got raised and retired really rich shifting manufacturing jobs to China. The narrative about them not being open is just a way to cope with their rise now and get rid of any blame. > We gave China everything - we allowed their people to study at our universities, we allowed their tourists, we gave them virtually full access t…

> You're talking about it as if it was a bug, it was not. I'm pretty sure a generation of MBAs got raised and retired really rich shifting manufacturing jobs to China. The narrative about them not being open is just a way to cope with their rise now and get rid of any blame.

IMHO it's both. It did make sense to introduce China to the Western markets, even leaving the MBA BS aside, just out of moral fairness. It was the right thing to do ethically, the execution was just fucked up - in no small part as you say due to the rise of neoliberalism.

> Lol, when you have to convince people that working in services instead of manufacturing is the future, that's what you get.

Yup. The problem with anything manufacturing is the associated pollution, energy usage and the healthcare costs from dealing with old-aged former physical laborers... we shifted all of that to China.

> Europe is shifting to a continent of pensionists, highly educated people that live with their parents til their 40s

Not by choice though. The problem is that real estate markets are fucked over, in the hot markets where the jobs are, even as a gay DINK couple (aka landlord's dream - two full time incomes and a very low chance of them adopting a child which makes noise and causes complaints from other renters) you don't stand a chance.

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#454
post #5

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 revers…

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...

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#455
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You could just add easily argue that the Dutch government has immense leverage over the US, since ASML controls the Not really since the USA basically controls ASML. That's not even counting the USA's control over most of Europe especially the Netherlands.

Whatever control America is supposed to have is waning rapidly. America is doing a great job of ceding its soft-power and becoming an unreliable ally at best.

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#457
post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Venezuela a defacto dictatorship now? Not sure the 3% is correct under these conditions.

It could have maybe gone a bit differently if the US government had resisted the urge to interfere, like in the bad old days of the cold war. They isolated Chavez and then Maduro, which backfired just enough to justify the slide into full-on dictatorship. People voted for Chavez and then (at least once) for Maduro because the massive inequality was unsustainable. If the US had accepted that and worked with them inste…

'Isolated' Chavez is a bit disingenuous here, they full on attempted to mount a coup against a democratically elected president. See this documentary 'the revolution will not be televised: https://youtu.be/GF4peYCrV6Y?si=EAKdElE6cq7js8aL'

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 vir…

We got back slave labour and offshored manufacturing pollution. Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.

> Personally, I'd rather pay extra for high quality goods made ethically than some planned obsolescence or plastic garbage.

Nitpicking a little, but the Chinese also make high quality stuff. It is not advertised as much though.

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#459
post #454
post #5

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 revers…

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 h…

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

Re: Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

#460
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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