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.
I think China will continue to increase trade with the third world and leave Europe behind if doing business becomes unprofitable. Why would they bother investing if it’ll just get stolen? If you want to talk about realpolitik, the US wants its vassals in a state of dependency and doesn’t want them having a relationship with its rival. More realpolitik:
The US literally does all of this, in addition to election manipulation and propaganda peddling, and (in addition to the new trade war angle) that’s how it pressures allies into dumping China. This all fits into the new Cold War, how do you not see it?
You seem to be in a weird state where every hostile act that both China and the US carry out is a reason to stop doing business with the US but not with China - unless you want to reassess the starting point where you said the Netherlands needs to leave itself open to pressure from China in this instance, every though that won’t cause dependence on the US, only a shift in balance.
Even with the hostile trump regime, China is still more hostile towards EU states than the US is.
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