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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

#571
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…

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...

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

#572
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not so much the Brits, but the French still have exploitative relations with their African ex-colonies; look up the CFA franc.

> (...) the CFA franc Why do you think this is relevant in discussions over who would respond to shutting down the Suez canal? I mean, do you have a map?

That's only one of the topics in this thread, it's about western (colonial) involvement elsewhere in general. Just have a look at the line of parents of this comment; you were the only one who reduced it to the Brits. I was directly replying to "as if there's still a British empire syphoning the economies of their colonies all the way from Great Britain", and the French are another, similar, Western power that's still doing that; they are also being talked about in sibling threads. Finally, questions like yours derail the discourse much more than comments like mine.

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

#573
post #427
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.

> The western companies aren't using the business as a strategic tool to destabilise the host country

where did you get that info? from cartoons? how old re you little npc?

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

#574
post #473
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…

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.

I'm a bit surprised by this move as well... If only someone had done similar to protect the gutting of Sears and K-Mart, even if both companies made several years of bad decisions themselves, the way they were cleaned out is disgusting.

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

#575
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…

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.

It seems that microchips are a major export, a single industry in a country collapsing can cause a lot of damage. From other mentioned articles, it seems like the company was setup to extract all value to prop up another company... not dissimilar from K-mart and Sears stripped of all value at the end. Now imagine that accounts for say even 5% of GDP and other industries rely on that product as well.

I've been advocating for years that US prescription medications should require dual sourcing and at least 50% domestic production purely for security reasons. You can ramp up from 50% with multiple providers a lot easier than 0.

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

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most products are strategically important. You might be fooled into saying that toaster ovens aren't strategically important, but then if your country can't make its own toaster ovens, it turns out that it can't make dozens of other strategically important products either. Steel, ships, automobiles, semiconductors and computer infrastructure, food, clothing, aircraft, medical equipment, and on and on and on. It's difficult to name a manufactured product that isn't.

>Trade happens because not a single country has or can produce all the (strategically important) products it wants,

This is an interesting claim. What if instead, a single country could produce all the products it wants and needs, but that doing so would be less lucrative for a certain subset of the population that can take advantage of trade? In such a case, that single country might fail to do so and import a bunch of crap anyway, don't you think?

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

#578
post #408
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China liberalized their economy to compete with Western economies, showing their leaders don’t really believe in communism. And the US and Europe are moving towards command economies to keep up with China, showing their politicians don’t really believe in liberalism.

Liberalized? You mean "you can come here as long as I can copy/paste your products and push you out of business"? That's what liberal economies are about, right. :)

No, I mean they did things like privatized state businesses, allowed entrepreneurs to start their own businesses, and created special economic zones.

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

#579
post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Erm - there is such thing as the concept of strategical industries. And it is neither a European thing or a modern thing either, but don't let that stop you from spouting a narrative where Europe is the bad guy in an international landscape where they have transferred voluntarily or not such much technology to China.

Do you think this move is going to advance the cause of European domestic technology production?
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