On October 30, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce responded to reporters’ questions on the joint arrangements for the China-US Kuala Lumpur Economic and Trade Consultation, and disclosed the consensus reached by the China-US economic and trade teams through the Kuala Lumpur consultation. Among the consensus reached by China and the United States is that the United States will suspend the implementation of the 50% equity penetration rule on its export controls for one year. Since this rule seems to be a key reason why the Dutch government announced the forced takeover of Nexperia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wingtech Technology, with the temporary lifting of the export control crisis of Nexperia by the United States, can Wingtech Technology regain control of Nexperia?
Is the one-year pause a coincidence or premeditated? On September 29, local time, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released the latest 50% equity penetration rules for export controls. The new regulations identify companies that are included in the export control entity list (entity list) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and their subsidiaries holding 50% or more of the shares will also be restricted by U.S. export control policies.
Since Wingtech Technology was included in the entity list by the U.S. Department of Commerce on December 2, 2024, this also means that Nexperia, as its wholly-owned subsidiary, will also be affected by the latest U.S. export control policies after the rule officially takes effect.
Immediately afterwards, on September 30, local time in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs issued a ministerial order requiring Nexperia, a subsidiary of Wingtech Technology, and all its subsidiaries, branches, offices, and other 30 entities around the world not to make any adjustments to their assets, intellectual property rights, business, and personnel. The order is valid for one year.
Subsequently, on the afternoon of October 7, 2025, Dutch time, the Dutch Corporate Court ruled that (1) Zhang Xuezheng was suspended from his position as a non-executive director of Nexperia Holdings and Nexperia's executive director; (2) A foreigner appointed by the Corporate Court, independent of Nexperia, was appointed as a non-executive director of Nexperia Holdings and Nexperia, with decisive voting rights; it also ruled that the director has the right to independently represent Nexperia Holdings and Nexperia; (3) To place all shares of Nexperia (less one share) in trust for administrative purposes to a person to be later designated and announced.
At this point, Wingtech Technology's Chinese managers in Nexperia have been suspended, Wingtech Technology's voting rights and equity in Nexperia have been frozen, and assets, intellectual property rights, business and personnel are not allowed to make any adjustments. Wingtech Technology has completely lost control of Nexperia.
Although the Dutch government has always emphasized that the takeover of Nexperia was due to "corporate governance issues" and denied that it was due to pressure from the United States, judging from the time when the incident occurred, it was highly consistent with the rhythm of the United States' introduction of the 50% equity penetration rule for export controls.
What’s even more interesting is that the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs’ ministerial order against Nexperia is for one year, and the United States has also suspended the 50% equity penetration rule for export control policies for one year after the economic and trade talks with China. Is this a coincidence or premeditation?
From a larger perspective, the fundamental reason why the United States introduced the 50% equity penetration rule for export controls on September 29 should be to create leverage for Sino-US economic and trade negotiations. However, the United States still needs to take into account the interests of allies such as the Netherlands.
Therefore, Xinzhixun speculates that the United States has discussed with the Dutch government before formally promulgating the 50% equity penetration rule for export control, and may have even revealed to it that the rule will be used as a "profit" bargaining chip in the subsequent Sino-US economic and trade negotiations, that is, it will be suspended for one year, so it will not have a substantial impact on Nexperia Semiconductor.
Against this background, the Dutch government has been planning to make Nexperia a real European company again in recent years (see Core Intelligence's previous report "The Netherlands' "Robbery" of Nexperia Insider Exposure: It has been planned for several years!"), so the ministerial order was issued to forcibly take over Nexperia, and the validity period was also set to one year.
This may also be seen as evidence that the Netherlands is highly following U.S. policies.
How to solve the problem of Anshi control rights?
As Xinzhixun pointed out in its previous article "Analysis and Response to the Wingtech Nexperia Asset Freeze Incident", the U.S. "Export Control 50% Equity Penetration Rule" is a key incentive for the Dutch government to forcibly take over Nexperia.
The Dutch government's operation was also smarter. It used "corporate governance issues" as the reason to forcefully take over Nexperia, rather than "avoiding Nexperia being subject to U.S. export controls". On the one hand, it can be said that it has nothing to do with "political factors" and "pressure from the US government"; on the other hand, it is probably because it already knows that the rule will be suspended for one year. If this reason is used, then when this reason is eliminated or temporarily eliminated, continued control of Nexperia is untenable.
So next, how will China and the Netherlands resolve the issue of control over Nexperia?
Xinzhixun still maintains its previous view. When the key influencing factor of the United States' "50% equity penetration rule for export control" is eliminated (Nexperia is no longer affected by the US export control policy), then the Dutch government will have no reasonable reason to force Wingtech Technology to sell more than 50% of Nexperia's equity. Wingtech Technology’s controlling stake in Nexperia Semiconductor is expected to be retained.
However, as mentioned earlier, the Dutch government and Nexperia management have been seeking in recent years to re-establish Nexperia as a truly European company. (For example, in order to reduce the influence of Chinese parent company Wingtech Technology on Nexperia Semiconductor, it plans to set up a supervisory board to supervise Dutch Wingtech Technology’s decision-making on Nexperia Semiconductor. In addition, it also plans to allow new shareholders from Western countries to join and eventually promote the company’s independent listing.) Therefore, the Dutch government may still want to take the opportunity to promote the implementation of these plans that it has been planning for several years. If these plans are implemented, Wingtech's control over Nexperia will be further weakened than before, and it will also need to release part of Nexperia's equity (for example, let Nexperia IPO in Europe or the United States, and introduce external investors from Europe and the United States).
Since the Chinese market is currently Nexperia's largest market in the world (Wingtech's third quarter financial report data shows that the Chinese market revenue accounts for 49.29% of Nexperia's total global revenue), and about 70% of Nexperia's packaging and testing capacity is in the Dongguan factory in China, this also makes it impossible for Nexperia to give up the Chinese market. Nexperia Semiconductor of the Netherlands has also publicly stated this before.
Therefore, the solution to the control issue of Nexperia still needs to be resolved through negotiations between China and the Netherlands. Therefore, if China and the Netherlands want to obtain a favorable situation in the negotiations, they must gain enough bargaining chips before then.
Therefore, we have seen a series of countermeasures implemented by China after the Netherlands forcibly took over Nexperia:
On October 4, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued an export control notice prohibiting Nexperia China and its subcontractors from exporting specific finished components and subassemblies manufactured in China.
On October 19, China Anshi issued a statement stating that it had the right to refuse to implement instructions from the Dutch headquarters without violating work discipline or legal regulations.
On October 23, China Nexperia issued another statement, publicly rejecting the Dutch headquarters’ decision to fire John Chang, vice president of sales and marketing, and stated that the move was inconsistent with China Nexperia’s Articles of Association and China’s Labor Contract Law, and therefore had no legal effect. At the same time, China Anshi emphasized: "All business activities, production operations and external cooperation of China Anshi are carried out in an orderly and normal manner within the framework of the legal system and are not affected by any external unilateral decisions. We are fully capable of ensuring the continuity and stability of our business."
It is also worth mentioning that according to people familiar with the matter, China Anshi has resumed supply to the domestic market on October 23, but all transactions must be settled in RMB, while previously they were settled in US dollars.
On the evening of October 30, Wingtech Technology issued an announcement to appoint Shen Xinjia, vice president of the listed company and chief affairs officer of Nexperia CEO Office, as the company’s president. It is worth noting that Shen Xinjia holds a bachelor's degree in law from East China University of Political Science and Law, a master's degree in law from Columbia University, and holds a Chinese legal professional qualification. He has more than 15 years of experience as a legal consultant for foreign companies and listed companies, and is proficient in corporate governance, compliance risk control, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border transactions. Obviously, Wingtech Technology may launch a legal offensive against the Netherlands' decision to forcibly take over Nexperia.
On October 31, according to Bloomberg, Wingtech stated in a newly released email that any agreement to restart Nexperia’s exports from China must include the reinstatement of Nexperia’s former CEO Zhang Xuezheng and the withdrawal of the charges against Zhang Xuezheng. At the same time, Wingtech Technology also denied and refuted various accusations made by the Netherlands about so-called "technology transfer" and "technology theft".
In response to China's countermeasures, Nexperia of the Netherlands has also taken frequent actions. In addition to the aforementioned request to remove Nexperia executives from their positions, Nexperia's interim CEO Stefan Tilger also sent a letter around October 22 to warn its European customers not to use chips made by China Nexperia, saying that they are not made of standard materials or do not meet quality standards. He also said, "We strongly recommend against receiving or using such components."
On October 31, according to the latest report from Reuters, Nexperia interim CEO Stefan Tilger sent a letter to customers again on October 29, stating that he had suspended wafer supply to Nexperia’s packaging and testing plant in Dongguan City, China on October 26, saying that this was “a direct result of local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed upon contract payment terms.” "Unless these contractual obligations are fully fulfilled, we will not be able to resume supply of wafers to this facility. Nexperia is developing alternative solutions to ensure continued supply of wafers to our customers," Stefan Tilger wrote.
To be honest, Nexperia's move to suspend the supply of wafers to China Nexperia is really cruel, because if China Nexperia's packaging and testing factory does not have wafers supplied by Nexperia, Nexperia, the factory may gradually stop production. Because the research and development and wafer manufacturing of Nexperia-related products are all abroad, only packaging and testing is done in China, and domestic packaging and testing factories have always relied on the supply of wafers manufactured by Nexperia outside China.
Even if Wingtech wants to promote the localization of its supply chain, such as finding OEMs from other domestic wafer factories, it will be difficult to achieve without the design data of relevant products in hand. Even if there is technical information, there are domestic manufacturers that can OEM wafers. This also involves issues such as product certification (especially vehicle-level certification) and customer approval.
However, Nexperia's move will further aggravate the shortage problem for Nexperia customers, because Nexperia's customers also include subsidiaries or joint ventures of European and American auto parts and complete machine manufacturers in China. This is a "seven-injury punch" that hurts others and yourself.
The continued escalation of the struggle between China and the Netherlands for control of Anshi has also completely disrupted the global automotive chip supply chain. The U.S., Japanese and German car companies, which have recently been troubled by the shortage of Anshi chips, are probably going to scold their mothers again: "You Anshi are fighting among themselves, and as a result, we have become the 'price' for you at all costs."
Correspondingly, if the control issue of Nexperia is not resolved as soon as possible, these customers will inevitably turn to alternatives, and then Nexperia of the Netherlands and China Nexperia will face a lose-lose situation.
In this regard, Core Intelligence believes that with the implementation of the phased results of Sino-US economic and trade negotiations, the suspension of the US "export control 50% equity penetration rule", the elimination of the core "export control" threat faced by Nexperia, the solution of the control issue of Nexperia between China and the Netherlands will soon be put on the table.
The latest reports also show that people familiar with the matter revealed that the US White House is about to announce that the Dutch semiconductor company, which suspended shipments a few weeks ago and may disrupt global automobile production, will resume chip supply in accordance with the framework agreement reached during the talks between the Chinese and US leaders. On November 1, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce responded to reporters' questions about Nexperia and said, "We will comprehensively consider the actual situation of the company and exempt qualified exports." Correspondingly, should the Netherlands also resume wafer supply to Chinese factories and consider returning control of Nexperia to Wingtech Technology as soon as possible?
If China and the United States have reached a solution to the Nexperia control issue in this economic and trade negotiation, then this further reflects that the Dutch government’s takeover of Nexperia is a pawn laid out by the United States for economic and trade negotiations with China.