Semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia’s homebase in Nijmegen – the biggest city in Gelderland, the Netherlands’ largest province – offers few clues that it sits in the eye of a storm that threatens to disrupt the global car industry’s supply chain.
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Dutch daily newspaper De Gelderlander, for example, featured more local stories including an explosion at a neighbourhood cannabis store, referred to as “coffeeshop”.
There were no banner headlines to be found about talks in Brussels on Tuesday between China’s Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao, and his counterparts in the European Union to defuse a row over Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia, which the Dutch government seized control of on September 30 by invoking an obscure 1952 law known as the Goods Availability Act.
“I know that it’s happening … but I don’t think it’s the talk of the town,” said a local resident by the name of Lisa in Nijmegen, with an estimated population of 189,007 in 2025.
The superficial calmness in the city masks an intense dispute over the control of Nexperia – a supplier of essential semiconductors used in automotive, industrial, mobile and consumer applications – weeks after Dutch authorities ousted CEO Zhang Xuezheng, the founder of Wingtech Technology, which is the chipmaker’s Chinese owner.
The Netherlands’ action on Nexperia came a day after the US government extended export control restrictions to entities at least 50 per cent owned by companies on Washington’s trade blacklist. Being wholly owned by blacklisted Wingtech, Nexperia became subject to US sanctions.