In 1987, The New York Occasions printed an open letter addressed to the American folks. Its writer, a New York actual property developer named Donald Trump, accused Japan of making the most of the USA and warned that America was being “laughed at” by its buying and selling companions. Practically 40 years later, now in his second presidential time period, Trump has turned the identical grievance in the direction of China, accusing it of exploiting US generosity and undermining US energy.
That concept now drives Washington’s world technique and more and more shapes Europe’s behaviour. The Dutch authorities’s September 2025 seizure of Nexperia, a Chinese language-owned chipmaker, supplied the clearest signal but of how far European governments have been drawn into the US-led confrontation with Beijing. Introduced as a matter of nationwide safety, the transfer got here after The Hague declared Nexperia’s Chinese language possession a risk to the Netherlands’ strategic pursuits.
The corporate on the coronary heart of this choice has its personal advanced historical past. Nexperia started as the usual merchandise enterprise unit of NXP Semiconductors. It was offered to a consortium of Chinese language buyers in 2017 and later grew to become one among a number of European tech corporations to affix China’s increasing industrial portfolio. By the late 2010s, that portfolio already included Supercell, Sumo, Stunlock and Miniclip in gaming, Kuka in robotics, WorldFirst in foreign money trade and the cellular promoting start-up MobPartner. Europe, which lengthy welcomed Chinese language funding as an indication of openness, now treats those self same partnerships as strategic threats.
The dimensions of these acquisitions grew alongside rising strain inside Europe to safeguard sectors deemed very important to nationwide safety. Governments started invoking emergency powers to dam or reverse Chinese language possession of what they now name strategic property. Nexperia was not the primary firm to be clawed again by a European state. In 2022, the UK ordered it to promote its stake in Newport Wafer Fab, whereas France seized Ommic in 2023. Within the US, the Chinese language agency Kunlun Tech was ordered to promote its 60 % stake in Grindr in 2019.
Globally, these tit-for-tat responses have turn out to be frequent. In 2024, Beijing restricted exports of key minerals utilized in semiconductor manufacturing and tightened guidelines on the sale of overseas chips after safety issues over Nvidia’s merchandise. In opposition to this backdrop, it’s not shocking that European governments have grown extra cautious of the switch of essential property and mental property to China.
The intuition to guard nationwide industries is hardly new. But for all of the Western outrage over Chinese language expertise theft, it’s price remembering that Alexander Hamilton, one of many founding fathers of the US, overtly inspired what would now be referred to as industrial espionage. In the course of the early years of the American Republic, the English-born engineer Samuel Slater memorised Richard Arkwright’s water-frame expertise and helped set up America’s first water-powered cotton mill in Rhode Island. Hamilton later praised such imitation in his 1791 Report on Manufactures.
Quick ahead to 2025, and when the so-called “Magnificent Seven” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) entered the trillion-dollar valuation membership, their rise was attributed to genius and innovation. But once they falter, as within the Tesla versus BYD competitors, blame typically shifts to exterior components reminiscent of unfair regulation or mental theft. US exceptionalism is forged as merit-based, whereas China’s ambition for technological management is condemned as unscrupulous.
Why, then, would a European nation insert itself right into a Sino-American contest for semiconductor supremacy by which the continent is a distant third?
European leaders argue that the reply lies in safeguarding sovereignty and decreasing dependence on authoritarian regimes. However the financial penalties are already turning into clear. Most of Nexperia’s manufacturing takes place in China, leaving the corporate unable to satisfy demand with out that capability. For the reason that takeover, a number of of its operations have slowed, and tons of of staff within the Netherlands, the UK and Germany face redundancy. World carmakers reminiscent of Volkswagen and Volvo have warned of doable manufacturing delays resulting from shortages of automotive chips, that are very important for car electronics and management programs.
The Netherlands will not be alone. Throughout Europe, governments have embraced the rhetoric of “de-coupling” from China at the same time as their economies stay deeply entangled with it. The seizure of Nexperia aligns carefully with European proponents of Donald Trump’s “liberation day” discourse, his marketing campaign for financial disentanglement from China framed as ethical redemption, and it foreshadows additional clawbacks throughout the Maastricht-born union. European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen’s name for “de-risking quite than decoupling” now rings hole towards this backdrop.
There’s an implicit capitulation in all this, one which started with the Marshall Plan in 1948 and continues to form Europe’s responses to crises from the Russo-Ukrainian battle to the current contest over expertise. Every episode has reaffirmed the identical sample: when Washington redraws its world strains, Europe adjusts accordingly. The Dutch seizure of Nexperia could also be justified within the language of sovereignty, but it surely exposes how little sovereignty stays. Because the US and China battle for technological dominance, Europe as soon as once more finds itself not as a participant within the new order, however as its terrain.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial coverage.