Preliminary
Legal documents on paper can't match the red button of the production line after all!
The Netherlands pretended to have taken the Anscher semiconductor with legal warfare, but did not think that on October 4, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce precisely cut off its factory in China.
The supply chains of European and American giants are in an instant emergency, and China's export controls are dragging the West into unprecedented predicament.
Empire on paper
The Dutch's shot this time can be called a well-planned "legal blitzkrieg".
They did not throw a big trumpet, but quietly broke out of the dust of history a Cold War-era “Commodity Supply Law” that directly froze the assets and business of Anselm’s 30 operating entities worldwide for a period of up to a year with this old antique.
The action was staggeringly fast. On September 30th, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs launched a surprise raid.
Immediately afterwards, the corporate court in Amsterdam avoided even the trial and issued emergency measures directly on October 1 to suspend Zhang Xuezheng, founder of Wentai Technology, from his position in Anshi.
A few days later, on the 6th of October, the verdict was officially issued, and it was even more urgent.
The court directly dismissed a foreigner with decisive voting rights as a non-executive director.
It’s not over, they also transferred 99 percent of Anselm’s shares, forcibly transferred to a third-party entity for custody.
After a combination of punches, from a legal perspective, China's parent company Wentai Technology has been completely suspended, leaving almost only a piece of paper of ownership of Anshi.
The official reason given by the Netherlands is imperative – safeguarding national security.
But anyone can see, there is a deeper calculation behind this, to know that Anselm before being acquired by the Chinese capital, business difficulties, is the burden of the original shareholders eager to sell.
Zhou Tai Technologies in 2019, spent almost RMB 33,7 billion, in three rounds to complete this snake annexation merger.
Under the influence of China's manufacturing system, Anselm not only turned the loss into profit, but also paid off all merger loans this year.
How did a thriving semiconductor company that has contributed 14.7 billion yuan in revenue and nearly 2.3 billion yuan in net profit to Wentai suddenly become a "national security threat"?
The answer may have to be found across the Atlantic.
Just a day before the Netherlands started, on September 29, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a new rule called the “50% rule”.
This rule is very overbearing. Simply put, as long as a parent company is on the "entity list" of the United States, its subsidiaries that hold more than 50% of the shares, regardless of which country they are registered, will automatically be included in the scope of "penetrating supervision" of the United States.
Unfortunately, Wentai Technology is on that list.
As a 100%-controlled subsidiary of Wingtech, Nexperia was accurately trapped in this way.
It's hard not to think of such a coincidence in time. Some media revealed that American officials had long warned the Netherlands that if Anshi wanted to be exempted, the company's leadership must be replaced.
Even in the recording of the telephone conference, the executives said that the Netherlands was taking the new rules of the United States as an excuse to seize control of the company, describing the Dutch government as a “mild sheep behind the ass of the United States.”
Therefore, this operation in the Netherlands is a legal action on the surface, but the core is a coordinated geopolitical operation. They are trying to use their own rules to bring a high-quality enterprise that has "flown away" back to the control circle of the West.
Who holds the door?
The Dutch won “nominal” in court, but they seemed to have forgotten the most important thing: the heart of the Anchor Semiconductor, beating in China.
China's countermeasures came quickly and accurately. On October 4, within three days of the preliminary measures issued by the Dutch court, China's Ministry of Commerce issued an export control notice.
This move did not expand or accidentally injure any other company. It was like a delicate surgical scalpel that accurately cut the vital point of Anshi Semiconductor-its production unit in China.
At the core of the regulatory order, it is forbidden to export certain components, including finished products and sub-components manufactured in China, from Anselm’s factory in China and its subcontractors.
This, directly struck on the “seven inches” of Anselm, Anselm Semiconductor, which originated in Philips’ European enterprise, with 70 to 80 percent of production capacity, has long been deeply rooted in China.
In particular, its packaging and testing factory in Dongguan is the "back process hub" of the entire supply chain. This super factory covering an area of 80,000 square meters is responsible for the packaging, testing and final shipment of all chip products.
It is the "last mile" of products from the factory to the customer, and Anselmo's annual shipment volume of more than 110 billion units, of which 70 percent, must go out of the door of the Dongguan factory.
Now that door is closed.
In their offices at the Dutch headquarters, executives may hold back the court's verdict and celebrate a legal victory.
But the victory instantly became immeasurably empty, because they controlled only a “brain” and that “brain” was no longer able to command its “body” in the far east.
After being shipped to China, the wafers produced in Europe became inventory that could not be shipped out of the factory. Without the packaging and testing of the Dongguan factory, these wafers were just a pile of expensive semi-finished products.
The game rules changed.
The European and American customers who really felt the pain of the skin were those who waited for Anselm's chip to start work.
Apple and Tesla, two global technology giants, are important customers of Nexperia.
What’s worse is the European automotive industry, Germany’s Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes, whose production lines rely heavily on car-standard chips such as MOSFET.
As soon as China's export control order came out, it was equivalent to directly cutting off the supply to these European and American giants. The chill of supply chain disruption quickly spread from Dongguan to factory workshops in Europe and America.
Downstream customers immediately fell into trouble: production lines may slow down, parts shortages are imminent, procurement costs soar, and product deliveries are delayed. This chain of reactions has transmitted the pressure intact back to the Western industrial chain itself.
Now it's the turn of European and American customers who can't sit still. I'm afraid their urging phone calls are more weighty than any legal document.
The Ansh event clearly demonstrates the new way of playing global science and technology games.
Supply chain security has risen from an economic issue to the core level of national security.
The Netherlands seized power in the name of "national security," while China used "export control" as a shield to counter it. Both sides did not hesitate to turn the supply chain into a weapon.
More importantly, this demonstrates the powerful power of an "asymmetric countermeasure." The Western world is accustomed to taking advantage of their advantages in legal rule-making and financial systems, while China has made full use of its core position in global manufacturing.
Compared to the past, when companies such as ZTE and Huawei face pressure, China’s counter-strategy seems to be more defensive.
But this time, the speed of reaction and the accuracy of the strike marked a strategic shift – from passive tolerance to the active shaping of the game pattern.
conclusion
Anselm’s wave of who ultimately loses and wins may not only depend on the ultimate assignment of control over the company, but it’s more like an alarm bell for all the multinationals and governments in the global layout.
The Dutch seemingly clever wave of seizure operations is likely to evolve into a farce, they not only failed to fully control Anselm, but instead exposed the vulnerability of their own industrial chain, but also made international investors to draw a big question on the fair competition environment of the market.
This game profoundly reminds everyone that when the trust foundation of globalization is eroded and efficiency must give way to security, who can control those key physical nodes and who has the strongest trump card on the table.