China has blocked the export of certain products produced by the Dutch chip company, Nexperia, according to Bloomberg. This is the same company that the Dutch government recently seized from its Chinese parent company to prevent the transfer of what it called “crucial technological knowledge” from leaving the country. This action appears to be retaliatory and highlights the increasingly multi-polar world that is developing under the umbrella of rapid global expansion in AI capabilities, and a rush to secure important strategic chip development resources.
Chinese trade relations with Western nations have been far more fractious in 2025 than in years past. Following increasingly aggressive global trade policies, China has pivoted from integrating with the wider global economy to focusing more on shoring up its own semiconductor development and nearer-to-hand trading partners. Many Western nations have mirrored this in turn, with the Dutch government’s latest actions appearing to be just one more example of nations ensuring their own supply of silicon above almost all else.
It is far from clear that dependency on the us is worse than dependency on China. A couple of years ago even suggesting it would be lunacy - it’s only even remotely credible just now.
It’s very obvious that dependency on the US is bad, though. Why not avoid complete dependence on one or the other?
What is causing “complete dependence on the US” here? Taking over one single Chinese company doesn’t do that.
And chipmaking is dominated by the US, China and Taiwan (which is not immune to influence from the other two parties, lol) so how exactly can one avoid dependency on or the other, except by balancing dependency between the two?
If you really think this means “complete dependence” then explain how.
Do you think China will want to keep doing business with someone that steals their shit?
Do you think they will completely stop doing business with someone that steals* their shit
*as much as this can be called theft, something which took place in specific non-arbitrary circumstances, rather than the Dutch government just thinking “I quite fancy that”
The UK undertook a similar action earlier this year when British Steel was threatened with going defunct by its Chinese owners. Business between the UK and China did not collapse as a result.
By realistic: China is continually carrying out low-level hostile actions against other nations - cyberattacks, IP theft, currency manipulation, and also this kind of attempt at industrial subordination. It’s realpolitik, which means that if it gets detected and a credible negative response, their reaction won’t be to cut off all trade; it will be to stop doing deals which they only wanted to do as a way of carrying out this kind of manipulation. If it were to cut off all trade, what you’re saying is that Western countries should roll over and accept abusive practices by China so as to avoid being dependent on the abusive USA. It makes no sense.
If you think that China is not actually doing anything that even deserves a response, then feel free to say so, of course.