Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dutch government takes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 668 posts

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

#501

Post by maxglute »

emmelaich wrote: post #199
maxglute wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategic REEs, i.e. heavyREE (Dysprosium, Terbium) are infact exceptionally rare, as in GEOLOGICALLY RARE. They are produced in China, because China (and Myanmar deposits controlled by China) are where ionic clays containing strategic HREEs can be economically extracted at scale. It's not just building altenrate HREE (empahsis on H) is not worth it, the technology simply doesn't exist to do so in other geologic depo…

I really wonder how much rare earth element deposits are not found for want of looking. Not much reason to source them yourselves if the country (China) uses them for products that you're going to buy. According to this map, China has vastly more. But is there something special about China/Myanmar geologically? I guess being downstream of the Himalayas is something. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/…

There's some in Brazil so I assume it can be found in appropriate conditions globally. I'm pretty sure AU will have some, because AU always seen have some. The issue still is going to be process/seperation, where main point is clay leeched HREE at scale didn't exist before PRC commercialization, so it's not just let's dust off old mineral textbooks, need to rediscover the entire tacit knownledge process for high purity extraction.

E: brushed up a little bit from a few month ago and AU just found some clay, because of course they did.

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

#502

Post by paulryanrogers »

zinodaur wrote: post #302
Sloowms wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, Venezuela famously only has lawsuits that happened to them. Maybe look up Guaido, the 3% polling self and US declared president of Venezuela.

And the huge American military force currently positioned off their coastline, blowing up boats!

How many decades after nationalization?

The motive for recent boat bombings is supposedly stopping illegal drugs. Though IMO it has more to do with distracting from the release of certain human trafficking records. This US administration seems bent entirely to the will and ego of one person.

(Which isn't to say the US has clean hands. Our list of attempted coups in South America is long.)

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

#503

Post by grafmax »

quitit wrote: post #498
quitit wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Edits aren't possible, but what the body of replies (so far) miss is that this is discussing the weaponisation motive versus the profit motive. The Dutch taking ownership of this company is not to divert its profits, it's to prevent the weaponisation of the company against the host country. There is an expectation that the Dutch have reasonable evidence of this. It's also set against a background of the foreign count…

Exploiting a foreign country’s own resources such that the profits are sent to foreign owners to the point of impoverishment instead of letting that country profit from those resources by socializing the profits to its people - surely that harms that country. Your distinction between profit and weaponization is superficial at best.

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

#504

Post by sholain »

motorest wrote: post #294
croes wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. And the west always said that China is bad for doing it. That’s the irony part.

> And the west always said that China is bad for doing it. "The west" criticizes China because the ruling regime imposes a series of arbitrary restrictions to foreign companies, including outright banning them, while demanding that Chinese companies should have unrestricted access to foreign markets. You are now faced with an exceptionally rare event where a member of "the west" enforces restrictions that are similar…

"enforces restrictions that are similar to the ones China "

No; the restrictions the West places on Chinese companies are not remotely comparable in proportionality or form.

But worse - China does not just have the opportunity to operate in the West in an asymmetrical fashion, but they're fairly aggressively openly stealing intellectual property etc., not just as a matter of 'national security' but as a matter of normal business operations.

The Chinese government operates police stations in foreign countries to surveille and oppress local citizens of the Chinese diaspora, and to coordinate activities.

There are always geopolitical shenanigans, but the West acted in roughly good faith inviting China into the WTO and was happy to play by some reasonable set of rules.

It's fair to use the label 'hypocritical' for what seems like arbitrary action in the West, but it's not truly arbitrary because it's a reaction to what was lack of good faith at least on the terms that were understood, and the term 'hypocritical' could be used tenfold in the other direction.

Also - even if everyone was playing roughly fair according to their own competitive advantages, the imbalances in some areas would be so problematic that there would have be some kind of reckoning anyhow.

The terms need to be reset, capital flows need to be adjusted, the USD cannot maintain such a high ranking position if they don't want to import, vast offshore tax shelters need to be shut down. Dubai is 'Mos Eisley' on Tatooine it's really just bad money.

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

#505

Post by rcxdude »

scotty79 wrote: post #459
daan-k wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly the kind of thing you're not meant to do with a company you don't wholly own (and to some extent with any limited liability company). Part of the deal is that as an executive or majority shareholder the company is not an extension of yourself, it's a seperate entity and when making decisions about it you are meant to act in the interests of that company. This is sadly not well enforced, but it is the kind of thing where shareholders can and will take action.

(Musk has been heavily criticised for pulling these kinds of shenanigans between Tesla, SpaceX, and X, but it seems like there are not enough shareholders willing to take him to task for it)

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

#506

Post by sholain »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #451
motorest wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 technol…

The West is relatively clean at least in this; they had fair and open terms for China which were not reciprocated.

Even those 'local partnerships' in China were not above board - they existed to steal the intellectual property from the partnered Western company.

It seems the only thing that can be nailed down are 'consumer brands' which are difficult to duplicate.

[1] https://www.planetizen.com/node/47241

At least in the context of trade over the last 35 years, there has been an imbalance.

As for 'Arbitrary Rules' - it's a fair claim and the US, EU etc. need to establish clear and fair terms. So should China, India, Brazil, everywhere else.

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

#507

Post by andsoitis »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #488
andsoitis wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Entities the size of the US or the EU are capable of producing most or all strategically important products internally, and then trade still happens because not all products are strategically important. Or because e.g. people in the Northeast buy oil from Canada because it's closer to them than Texas, even if both countries have that industry.

> Entities the size of the US or the EU are capable of producing most or all strategically important products internally

The US can internally produce: food staples, fossil fuels and nuclear fuel, most (but not all) industrial chemicals and construction material, defense systems and major military equipment, generic drugs and many medical devices.

However, vulnerabilities exist in: semiconductors, rare earth minerals, speciality chemicals and pharmaceutical raw materials.

Even if the EU were a country, it has high self-sufficiency for: temperature agriculture, industrial chemicals, some aerospace and defense components. However, it is import dependent for: energy, specialty metals and rare earths, pharmaceuticals, high-tech electronics and semiconductors.

Lastly, what about the remaining 167 countries in the world (195 - US - EU)? 90% of the world's population live outside the US and EU.

Trade is really really important for human flourishing.

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

#508

Post by rcxdude »

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…

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.

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

#509

Post by dragonelite »

sgt101 wrote: post #82
dragonelite wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has immense pressure on the dutch government, given their control over ASML . Its US big tech and semi design studios that determines who will need to buy EUV from ASML. Given ASML is not allowed to do business with China, Russia etc.

Where else will they buy EUV from?

Its China they will create their own EUV ecosystem, there are sources that keep track of Chinese developments and there's a lot of EUV related patents being rewarded within China.

So i wouldn't be surprised if they will announce first initial set of EUV test runs this year or early next year as a cherry on top of their "Made in China 2025" cake.

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

#510

Post by mk89 »

Sammi wrote: post #494
mk89 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the next step is to actually think "they are all potential enemies, we should produce here and be independent, so in case there is a war we can make it". Autarky is how Fascism began.

I absolute abhor a slippery slope argument that doesn't actually justify why and how this particular slope is slippery. Hand waving that something kinda sorta similar happened before is not good enough. Why and how will keeping some chip manufacturing away from China inevitably lead to Fascism? So much manufacturing has been ceded to to China, that it is at this point reasonable to say the it is time to be careful an…

It was an exaggeration, obviously. We're far from Fascism.

However, our economies are becoming more and more "local-first", after global leaders had told us that globalization was good to keep peace in the world...

Post reply on HN