On October 12, the Netherlands suddenly attacked Nexperia, a Chinese-funded enterprise. The Chinese CEO was suspended and assets of up to 14.7 billion were frozen for one year. It can be said that this decision directly broke the balance of international cooperation. Moreover, this kind of operation with obvious meeting undoubtedly helped the United States to carry out technological "robbery" of Chinese enterprises.
So, what kind of power operation logic is behind this? Can China's countermeasures hurt the Netherlands?
A robbery in a legal coat.
The means of the Dutch authorities were not a simple, brutal, direct confiscation, but rather a play of “procedural justice.”They put on a seemingly relentless legal coat for the ultimate goal of seizing power through a combination of “executive orders, judicial expeditions, internal remedies.”
On September 30, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of the Netherlands suddenly issued a ministerial decree on the grounds of the so-called “national security” risks.
This is equivalent to instantly "shocking" the company with annual revenue of 14.7 billion yuan before any legal action begins, paving the way for subsequent power changes. The pause button was pressed for corporate operations, management was paralyzed, and everything was ready for a "legal" plunder.
Immediately afterwards, judicial power intervened at an alarming speed. Just one day later, on October 1, the relevant court in Amsterdam approved emergency measures. What is shocking is that this ruling was made without holding any trial. Zhang Xuezheng, chairman of Wentai Technology, was directly dismissed as a director.
This is not the end. The more critical step is to implant a new core of power. The court appointed a foreign independent director, who was granted the "final decision" or "decisive voting power", which meant that control of the company was completely stripped from the hands of the original shareholders in a "surgical" precise operation.
The door to this external intervention was opened by three foreign executives from within the enterprise, the Anse Semiconductor, who joined forces as internal applicants to provide the most critical “legitimate” gateway for the Dutch government’s intervention, forming the perfect closing circle of the operation.
The end result is that the nearly 100% equity held by Wentai Technology through its subsidiaries is forced to be entrusted to a third-party institution. Wentai's shareholding was reduced to a nominal "1 share", completely losing its governance rights and voting rights over the company.
Who is the real national security threat?
Ironically, after the completion of the acquisition in 2019, Anselm Semiconductor, a company from Philips core division that was once considered to be a "non-core, non-advanced" technology, came into being. its business was pulled back from the downturn, a leap to become the "invisible king" in the global power chip field.
The company's annual revenue jumped to 14.7 billion, paying taxes to the Netherlands by 1.3 million euros in 2024 alone, and its R&D investment grew by 1.5 times.The world's small signal diode shipments ranked first, and the vehicle-grade MOS chip market share rose to the world's second.
Today, about one-third of the world's new energy vehicles use Nexperia's products, and its global market share of automotive chips has reached an astonishing 14%. It can be said that after being acquired by Chinese capital, this enterprise not only did not decline, but made greater contributions to the Dutch economy and the global industrial chain.
The logic behind forcibly taking away such a well-run enterprise that continues to create value for a vague "national security" reason seems so false and contradictory. It clearly shows that under the so-called legal cloak, what is wrapped is not concern about national interests, but naked geopolitical calculations.
Who did the regular boomerang hit?
The Dutch move, which appears to have precisely hit China's semiconductor industry layout, but its destructive effects, like a wheeled backbone thrown out, will eventually crush itself, more seriously impacting the stability of the global industrial chain.
The first to bear the brunt is the global auto industry. Nexperia is a key chip supplier to global car companies such as BMW and Volkswagen. The administrative intervention of the Dutch government has caused the company's decision-making level to fall into chaos, directly threatening the global production line of new energy vehicles and making the already fragile supply chain worse.
The deeper injury is the "self-destruction of credibility" of its own investment environment.Analysts have said that this practice of replacing market rules with political intervention is damaging the reputation of the Netherlands itself as an investment destination.It shakes the fundamental confidence of international capital in investing in the European high-tech sector, this invisible loss is far more severe than the loss of a company.
China, of course, is not just a diplomatic protest.In a statement released late at night, Zhou Tai Technologies described the move as “taking power under political pressure” and said it had hired the top international law firm to prepare for legal proceedings in the Netherlands.
More importantly, China has demonstrated its ability to precisely combat the weak links in the competing industrial chain. Previously, China has implemented export controls on the key raw materials of semiconductor uranium and uranium, which has seriously affected the United States and Dutch related enterprises.
On October 9, China again launched a list of export restrictions for technologies such as rare earth mining, metallurgy separation. China's supply of rare earth accounted for more than 80% of the world, which precisely hit those industries that rely heavily on China's rare earth, including the Dutch proud ASML light engraving machine. This is undoubtedly warning each other: moving a stone, it is likely to hit your feet.
The Great Chess Game.
Looking at the Nexperia incident in isolation, it may seem difficult to understand, but if you place it in the grand chess game of the Sino-US tech war, everything becomes clear. This is not a "whim" of the Netherlands, but an inevitable continuation of its role in the US-led strategy of containing China's science and technology.
The history of the pulse is very clear, as early as 2023, the Netherlands has followed the pace of the United States, restricting the export of advanced light engraving machines to China. This time on the Anselm semiconductor, but is the reflection of its policy coherence, behind the unresistable pressure of the alliance.
The changing role of Nexperia itself also reflects how geopolitics redefines the value of technology. At the time of its acquisition in 2019, its technology appeared to be "non-core" on the Dutch side. However, with the advent of the era of new energy vehicles, automotive-grade chips have become a core strategic resource. Once neglected assets have turned into "pawns" that must be fought for.
Geopolitics has dynamically changed the "security" attribute of a technology, which is the underlying reason why Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian explicitly opposed the "generalization of the concept of national security" and discriminatory practices in response to a question from Bloomberg. His statement is not only a warning to the Netherlands, but also a message to all countries swaying under the pressure of the United States, intending to draw a red line for the politicization of economic and trade issues.
conclusion
In an extreme and humiliating way, the Anshi Semiconductor incident nakedly tied legal tools, market rules and geopolitical ambitions. The Dutch government seems to be "acting in accordance with the law" at every step, but its essence is to use the state machine to serve its own industrial anxieties and geostrategy. This kind of behavior shakes not only the foundation of an enterprise, but also the cornerstone of trust on which global commercial civilization relies.
That symbolic "one-share" ownership is not only a huge humiliation to Wingtech Technology's 26.8 billion investment, but also a public torture of the entire international economic and trade order. When the soil of trust is eroded and the rules are played wantonly, all participants at the poker table will eventually become losers.
Cailian 2025-10-12 "Netherlands freezes Wentai Semiconductor's assets, Anshi foreign executives demand transfer of controlling stake"
World Wide Web 2025-10-10 "Clarify specific targets, strictly control militarily sensitive areas, and control rare earth export related export, China has taken steps one after another"