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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

#471

Post by leric »

MediumOwl wrote: post #364
next_xibalba wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are right. China does not really implement free market without government interaction. Then again, neither does the US or any other country for that matter. The US used its massive state surveillance apparel to spy on essentially every country in the world, not only for diplomatic advantage, which you might argue would be fair game, but also to steal industrial secrets and promote US companies (see e.g. https://w…

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

#472

Post by retor »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #133
Doxin wrote: 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…

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…

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

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

#473

Post by tinco »

daan-k wrote: post #454
Doxin wrote: 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…

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.

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

#474

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

benjiro wrote: post #463
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all. This is one of the most persistent misunderstandings about China. China had a closed, planned economy. It began opening up to foreign investment in the 1980s, but not all at once in every sector. China's general approach has been gradual, instead of the "shock therapy" that the ex-Soviet Union went through (which…

> China has been moving towards more openness to foreign investment over time After they lost most of those same foreign investors that got tired of handing over their IP, the "local partnering" (what often resulted in state/court backed judgements against the foreign investors), ... The disasters "wolf warrior" politics, combined with the above mentioned issues. And the stringent monetary policies limitation on movi…

The IP sharing issue has been massively overblown. IP sharing was relatively limited.

The European and American car manufacturers, for example, never lost their considerable competitive edge over their Chinese rivals. In the end, it was an entirely different technology - electric cars - that allowed the Chinese to leap-frog the legacy car manufacturers, and not because of IP sharing, but because of Chinese R&D in battery technology.

> This has resulted in a reduction of foreign investment by almost 70% (given the 15 year average). What used to be easily be 200 a 250B investments per year, has now dropped to barely 100B, and is still declining.

Foreign investment in China peaked in 2022. The reasons for the decline are cyclical (not just because of China's internal economic situation, but because of international factors like the hike in US Federal Funds Target Rate since 2022), not because China suddenly started demanding IP sharing or suddenly changed its currency rules in 2022 (none of which happened).

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

#475

Post by cma256 »

wraptile wrote: post #469
amai wrote: post #362

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.

> 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"

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).

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

#476

Post by rzerowan »

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...

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

#477

Post by mightyham »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #452
noobermin wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

I don't see what the meaningful difference is between trade barriers (assuming by that you mean tariffs) and tax incentives for specific industries. Moderate, targeted tariff policies, especially ones that gradually decreased over time, can achieve the same effect of bolstering domestic industry while still allowing a healthy amount of foreign competition.

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

#478

Post by mromanuk »

quitit wrote: post #427
mtrovo wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Read about the United Fruit Company, they created “banana republics” destabilizing governments.

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

#479

Post by andsoitis »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #452
noobermin wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

> 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.

Trade happens because not a single country has or can produce all the (strategically important) products it wants, without trading with others.

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

#480

Post by femiagbabiaka »

rzerowan wrote: post #476

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…

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