Dutch dispute with Chinese chipmaker is a 'wake-up call'

A bitter battle over the future of a Chinese-owned chipmaker in the Netherlands that threatened to cripple the global car industry is a “wake-up call to Europe and the west”, the minister at the heart of the row has warned.

- Lisa O'Carroll

The six-week standoff between the EU and Beijing over Nexperia and its vital supplies of automotive semiconductors has served up a sobering lesson to world leaders over their dependency on China, said Vincent Karremans.

The economy minister said he had no regrets about the tussle and would not change his actions even with the benefit of hindsight.

“There’s a lot of interest in exactly what happened,” he said. “It’s like an economic thriller.”

Detailing how the trade war unfolded, he recalled high-level exchanges with his German counterpart, the car industry and the US, as well as conversations with critical information he claimed showed Nexperia was moving parts of its operations in Hamburg to China.

The dispute started on 30 September when the Netherlands took supervisory control of Nexperia, alleging risks to “economic security”.

The decision to invoke a never-used cold war law had been taken two days earlier at the highest level of the Dutch government and came after detailed legal checks.