Dutch government seizes local chipmaker from its Chinese owner — Nexperia parent company Wingtech preps response to 'exceptional' steps taken to safeguard 'crucial technological knowledge'
The Chinese chairman was also removed and will be replaced by a non-Chinese person with a "deciding vote" in due time.
The Dutch government has taken the "exceptional" step of seizing control of strategically important Dutch chip maker Nexperia from its Chinese owner, Wingtech, as nationalist instincts continue to shape the semiconductor industry.
The government says it is concerned that important technologies could be transferred to the Chinese parent company, according to Reuters. With this manoeuvre, it can block any such attempts, maintaining this "crucial technological knowledge and capabilities on Dutch and European soil."
Nexperia is one of the largest companies in the world when it comes to manufacturing simple silicon components such as the diodes and transistors, MOSFETs, and logic gates that are found in all manner of modern electronics. Wingtech has been on the United States "entity list" for the past year, highlighting it as a potential security concern. That list was expanded in September to include subsidiaries of those companies, suggesting Nexperia itself may have come up as a potential security concern.
Although not confirmed, that causal link is there, and the Dutch government has firmly taken control of the company. A Dutch judge ousted the Chairman, Zhang Xuezheng, earlier this month. Wingtech has now pledged to replace him with a non-Chinese person in due course.
The government will also now be able to block or reverse any management decisions it sees as harmful, though regular company operation will continue at its various facilities around the world, including factories in Germany and the UK.
The decision to take control of Nexperia came following "acute signals of serious administrative shortcomings and actions" at the company, according to the Dutch government. "These signals threaten the continuity and safeguarding of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities on Dutch and European soil."
"The loss of these capabilities could pose a risk to Dutch and European economic security," it added. For its part, Wingtech said it was speaking to lawyers and seeking government help to "protect the legitimate rights and interests of the company."
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It's not clear what technologies in particular the Dutch government is keen to protect, but semiconductor companies all over the world are now seen as important for strategic defense reasons as they commercial opportunities. Modern processors are required for the latest high-tech drones and missile technologies, as well as high-end infrastructure and modern AI developments, making them technologies that governments the world over are looking to husband and protect.
As many countries around the world look to build up their semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and control their own AI-data centers, we're starting to see more of a multi-polar world trading economy, more so than the highly interlinked one of recent years.
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Jon Martindale is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. For the past 20 years, he's been writing about PC components, emerging technologies, and the latest software advances. His deep and broad journalistic experience gives him unique insights into the most exciting technology trends of today and tomorrow.
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Cookielover Very smart decision by Dutch government. Many more countries should do the same to not allow communist China to keep sending trojan horse employees into important overseas tech, science, food industrys. Its time to face the facts and realize China is on Russias and N.Koreas side and is the only reason russia is able to continue it's invasion of Ukraine. Also soon the world will deal with china trying too take Tawain by invasion. People in western countries who glorify or support China are just dumb and dont understand history; and they support dictators and the supression of basic human rights!Reply
I wonder reading the user comments here if they are Chinese created fake accounts to make others think China and russia are somehow good for the world. Very sick!!! -
King_V All well and good, and I agree with the concerns that the Dutch have.Reply
That said, we might as well be realistic and drop the word "communist" from the statements here. The Chinese government's economic system is about as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's government is democratic. -
Anton Longshot Reply
Exactly. Both the PRC and N.Korea are military dictatorships. If I'm not mistaken that's what communist regimes eventually turn into.King_V said:All well and good, and I agree with the concerns that the Dutch have.
That said, we might as well be realistic and drop the word "communist" from the statements here. The Chinese government's economic system is about as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's government is democratic.
I suppose for many people 'communist' just translates to "bad/evil" so the name sort of stuck even though it's wrong. -
George³ I am totally confused. Is the Dutch bureaucracy the knowledge and skills to manage a technology company?Reply -
Cookielover Reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_ChinaKing_V said:All well and good, and I agree with the concerns that the Dutch have.
That said, we might as well be realistic and drop the word "communist" from the statements here. The Chinese government's economic system is about as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's government is democratic.The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's congresses. This system is based on the principle of unified state power, in which the legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is constitutionally enshrined as "the highest state organ of power." As China's political system has no separation of powers, there is only one branch of government which is represented by the legislature. The CCP through the NPC enacts unified leadership, which requires that all state organs, from the Supreme People's Court to the State Council of China, are elected by, answerable to, and have no separate powers than those granted to them by the NPC
They call themselevs communists and work mostley that way. In truth they are basically dictators; just like all communist countries really are.
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" -
Zaranthos Kind of splitting hairs on political system terminology, but for norms who didn't take a political science course China is basically a communist country. The government largely controls the means of production and can seize control of companies at will. There is mostly an illusion of some free market principles in China, probably mostly to appease the west, but the CCP always exerts control over most everything.Reply
Most of the world has tolerated China stealing technology in one form or another for a long time now. Long past time countries finally start to push back on that. I have almost zero faith China would use more power and control for benevolence considering their track record domestically or on the world stage.