Of course the preferred option is what the Chinese do which is to never let that happen in the first place or if you do allow foreign investment always keep a 50.1% stake in the entity and exfiltrate any tech from the venture you need .

USA is nationalizng Intel and under this administration more of the commie shit is coming :)

> But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.

As far as I understand, Samsung, TSMC, and SMIC are all closely guarded by their respective governments. And China doesn't (didn't?) allow foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner at all. So I don't see the irony - everyone practices protectionism, some are just more subtle about it than others.

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

This has always been the case, to some degree, but I think it will be a much bigger factor now that so many have accepted that Neoliberalism is dead and no longer give it lip service.

Probably not an awesome sign if multiple actors are invoking never-used laws that were created while WWII was still fresh on everyone's mind.

Netherlands imported more CeO2 (a rare earth) from China than any other country, with 517 metric tons during the first half of 2025.

That whole REE thing is more of a scare tactic than anything. REEs are really not all that rare, and the current imports of REEs into the US are worth around $200-250M annually. That is millions, not billions. It's actually a laughably small amount.

The main reason that it's mostly China producing them may simply be due to the fact that the volumes are so small that building your own industry is not really worth it.

This is it.

I always wondered how the large unified world of Roman Empire with running water and sewer fell apart (and backwards) into multitude of small feudal pieces with no technology to speak of for the 1000 years after Roman Empire. I think our modern civilization is probably at the beginning of similar process.

How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands

> I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something.

It's not, it's a Dutch company, formed according to Dutch law, with headquarters in the Netherlands, that was bought by another Chinese company a few years ago.

Dutch law sets rules on how any company, but especially public companies (so-called naamloze vennootschappen) must be governed. Even if you own all the shares, by law you don't have unlimited and unchecked power in the company, you have to abide by governance rules.

Seemingly simultaneously with the government order, a suit was brought to the court enforcing these laws (the Ondernemingskamer) alledging that the CEO and owner were not abiding by them. The court documents are a bit weird to me as a non-lawyer, with Nexperia named as both plaintiff and defendant, so I'm not sure who brought it, but it might've been the government, who are named as a party.

The court agreed that the suit could have merit, and as an interim measure while the legal proceedings play out, has suspended the CEO and named a temporary director. It also suspended the authority of the owners over their shares (except for one), and assigned a trustee to manage them temporarily. The court did not actually rule on the contents of the suit yet, it only issued interim conservatory measures. We'll likely hear more about how the suit plays out over the next few months.

An interesting matter of contention in the suit is that the CEO/owner want the CLO to be suspended, while the other side asks the court to prohibit firing of the CLO. I presume there has been a conflict in the board, either leading to or caused by the government order.

The court documents are public by the way (in Dutch, obviously): https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/resultaat?zoekterm=nexperi...

> I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company.

It's worth noting that Nexperia is a spin-off of NXP (Dutch company) which itself is a spin-off of Philips' (Dutch company) semiconductor division.

It's also worth noting that Nexperia's Chinese owners (Wingtech) are at least partially state controlled.

Believe it or not, but the dutch government has agency. It's not impossible for US pressure to be a factor, but I think it's more likely the management of the company was planning to move production to china or something like that. That'd (rightly!) spook the government into some quick action, especially given the political climate around Russia seemingly not being content with having their war confined to Ukraine.

Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.

It has an interesting etymology: https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2014/09/words-...

Did they? As far as I know Kuka is still fully controlled by Midea.

the jobs didn't disappear (yet). they grew from 13.000 in 2014 before midea took over to 15.000 in 2024. maybe they could have grown more in germany if midea hadn't taken over. who knows.

Oh lord no. Pacino’s Scream made acting history and is of the finest scenes to come out of the Strasberg acting ecosystem. Critics gonna crit, but there are some remarkably good things about that film.

Yeah there are so many memorable quotes.

afaik there was the added danger there that if the blast furnaces are turned off its very difficult /impossible to start them again.

This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?

European companies have had massive investments in China for decades now.

Many people in the West have no idea what's going on in China. Western brands and investments are all over the place. Half the cars on the streets used to be European or American (and that has only recently changed, due to the rise of EVs).

Yet Europeans and Americans often complain, "Why can't Western companies operate in China?" Excuse me?

There are many companies which the Chinese government could target in retaliation. In China foreign companies are usually minority partners in some ventures with some Chinese company.

> and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.

FWIW, EU countries are still sending more money to Russia for oil than they send Ukraine in aid. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more...

Modern global economies are complicated.

> they are exporting to Russia on the sly

is it really on the sly though?

The Euro stance on buying US weapons for Ukraine is probably the most dumbest strategic move or the century. Europe is losing at an alarming rate in many ways. I would be more concerned about the US if I were Europe.