Netherlands cracks down on China-owned chip firm over security risk

The Dutch authorities stated on Sunday that it had taken the “extremely distinctive” resolution to intervene at Chinese language-owned chipmaker Nexperia over a possible “danger to Dutch and European financial safety.”The Netherlands-based agency’s proprietor Wingtech stated on Monday that it’ll take actions to guard its rights and can search authorities help.The event threatens to lift tensions between the European Union and China, which have elevated in latest months over commerce and Beijing’s relationship with Russia.Nexperia was compelled to promote its silicon chip plant in Newport, Wales after MPs and ministers expressed nationwide safety issues. It presently owns a UK facility in Stockport.The Dutch authorities stated its financial affairs ministry had invoked its Items Availability Act over “acute alerts of significant governance shortcomings” inside Nexperia.The legislation is designed to permit the Hague to intervene in corporations underneath distinctive circumstances. These embody threats to the nation’s financial safety and to make sure the availability of crucial items.The intervention is supposed to forestall a possible state of affairs by which Nexperia’s chips would grow to be unavailable in an emergency, stated the Dutch authorities.It added that Nexperia’s operations posed a “risk to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of essential technological information and capabilities.”The corporate’s manufacturing can proceed as regular, it added.Nexperia makes semiconductors utilized in vehicles and shopper electronics.The federal government assertion didn’t element why it thought the agency’s operations have been dangerous. The BBC has contacted Dutch authorities for clarification.Shanghai-listed shares in Nexperia’s dad or mum firm Wingtech fell by 10% on Monday morning.Wingtech is among the many corporations the US has positioned on its so-called “entity listing”. Beneath the laws, US corporations are barred from exporting American-made items to companies on the listing except they’ve particular approval.In September, the US commerce division additional tightened its restrictions, including to the entity listing any firm that’s majority-owned by a Chinese language agency.