Netherlands returns control of Nexperia to Chinese owner
16 comments
·November 19, 2025mainecoder
Well the Chinese are powerful and without the help of the US the Netherlands can't do much. Additionally, the process of moving discrete semiconductor production to China is already underway. Production in Hamburg will stop sometime in late 2029 and the R&D center in Nijmegen, Delft will close done late 2028. The US should have helped the Netherlands but now it is over the Chinese won this battle and fairly easily they did not need to use much of the leverage that they had. The commentary by EU officials shows that they used a top down approach using the EU to pressure the Dutch.
aldrich
Are you sure this is right, and if so would you mind sharing a source for this?
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-...
mainecoder
Additionally I forgot to mention the withholding of shipments from China of the finished product that served as a public(visible) leverage.
lysace
Perhaps something could have been done via the EU. (No, I know, France/Italy/Spain/Germany are way to obsessed with their exports to PRC.)
Been there/done that (Sweden was unjustly bullied by China and got next to no support from EU).
mainecoder
What if I told you that China has more influence over the EU than it has over the Kamer der Staten-Generaal( the Dutch parliament), thus they are using the EU to pressure the dutch. The irony is that European Sovereignty is respected when all the countries of Europe are able to make their own sovereignty respected i.e. it is each of the individual states making their own sovereignty respected that actually elevates the sovereignty of Europe, the EU by pressuring, disregarding and relegating the sovereignty of the member states devalues the collective sovereignty of Europe. Additionally adversaries need only focus on having leverage over EU officials and the EU officials will do their bidding for them.
stpedgwdgfhgdd
Headline should be:
The intervention by the Dutch government at the Nijmegen-based chipmaker Nexperia is being suspended.
damn3849472
I must say I feel very vindicated by this. The seizure of control of the company just for appointing a CEO from China (the horror!) never smelled right to me, but everyone in the previous comment section on this tried to rationalize it with "There must be some legitimate national security reason for the Dutch to do this". Clearly not much of a threat for them to cave so quickly!
Okkef
Found the Chinese bot!
It was not because he was from China. It was because he was directing funds to a Chinese company which did not make any business sense and leaking all kinds of intellectual property to China.
The Dutch move was dumb due to international power differences. The reasons to intercede were sound.
markus_zhang
Does it need legislation system to pass this or judges can block this somehow? It’s pay walled so not sure.
lysace
> The order that gave the Netherlands powers to block or revise decisions at Nexperia was dropped as “a show of goodwill”
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.)
rikafurude21
"show of goodwill" is politician-speak for capitulation. Taking over Nexperia caused a chip shortage for the german auto industry, which was an unintended consequence that they couldnt handle.
Barrin92
>Why do the dutch feel the need to show goodwill towards CCP?
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.
RAMJAC
$$$
lysace
That is almost always the case, but please expand.
RAMJAC
Maybe I was being a bit flippant, but I don't buy the "goodwill" argument. It's probably went, and by the article, something like this:
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.
https://archive.ph/lWpwt