Is Europe really breaking free from China, or just following the US?

In 1987, The New York Times published an unfastened missive addressed to the American people. Its author, a New York existent property developer named Donald Trump, accused Japan of taking vantage of the United States and warned that America was being “laughed at” by its trading partners. Nearly 40 years later, present successful his 2nd statesmanlike term, Trump has turned the aforesaid grievance towards China, accusing it of exploiting US generosity and undermining US power.

That thought present drives Washington’s planetary strategy and progressively shapes Europe’s behaviour. The Dutch government’s September 2025 seizure of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned chipmaker, offered the clearest motion yet of however acold European governments person been drawn into the US-led confrontation with Beijing. Presented arsenic a substance of nationalist security, the determination came aft The Hague declared Nexperia’s Chinese ownership a menace to the Netherlands’ strategical interests.

The institution astatine the bosom of this determination has its ain analyzable history. Nexperia began arsenic the modular products concern portion of NXP Semiconductors. It was sold to a consortium of Chinese investors successful 2017 and aboriginal became 1 of respective European tech firms to articulation China’s expanding concern portfolio. By the precocious 2010s, that portfolio already included Supercell, Sumo, Stunlock and Miniclip successful gaming, Kuka successful robotics, WorldFirst successful currency speech and the mobile advertizing start-up MobPartner. Europe, which agelong welcomed Chinese concern arsenic a motion of openness, present treats those aforesaid partnerships arsenic strategical threats.

The standard of those acquisitions grew alongside rising unit wrong Europe to safeguard sectors deemed captious to nationalist security. Governments began invoking exigency powers to artifact oregon reverse Chinese ownership of what they present telephone strategical assets. Nexperia was not the archetypal institution to beryllium clawed backmost by a European state. In 2022, the UK ordered it to merchantability its involvement successful Newport Wafer Fab, portion France seized Ommic successful 2023. In the US, the Chinese steadfast Kunlun Tech was ordered to merchantability its 60 percent involvement successful Grindr successful 2019.

Globally, these tit-for-tat responses person go common. In 2024, Beijing restricted exports of cardinal minerals utilized successful semiconductor manufacturing and tightened rules connected the merchantability of overseas chips aft information concerns implicit Nvidia’s products. Against this backdrop, it is not astonishing that European governments person grown much wary of the transportation of captious assets and intelligence spot to China.

The instinct to support nationalist industries is hardly new. Yet for each the Western outrage implicit Chinese exertion theft, it is worthy remembering that Alexander Hamilton, 1 of the founding fathers of the US, openly encouraged what would present beryllium called concern espionage. During the aboriginal years of the American Republic, the English-born technologist Samuel Slater memorised Richard Arkwright’s water-frame exertion and helped found America’s archetypal water-powered fabric mill successful Rhode Island. Hamilton aboriginal praised specified imitation successful his 1791 Report connected Manufactures.

Fast guardant to 2025, and erstwhile the alleged “Magnificent Seven” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) entered the trillion-dollar valuation club, their emergence was attributed to genius and innovation. Yet erstwhile they falter, arsenic successful the Tesla versus BYD competition, blasted often shifts to outer factors specified arsenic unfair regularisation oregon intelligence theft. US exceptionalism is formed arsenic merit-based, portion China’s ambition for technological enactment is condemned arsenic unscrupulous.

Why, then, would a European federation insert itself into a Sino-American contention for semiconductor supremacy successful which the continent is simply a distant third?

European leaders reason that the reply lies successful safeguarding sovereignty and reducing dependence connected authoritarian regimes. But the economical consequences are already becoming clear. Most of Nexperia’s accumulation takes spot successful China, leaving the institution incapable to conscionable request without that capacity. Since the takeover, respective of its operations person slowed, and hundreds of employees successful the Netherlands, the UK and Germany look redundancy. Global carmakers specified arsenic Volkswagen and Volvo person warned of imaginable accumulation delays owed to shortages of automotive chips, which are captious for conveyance electronics and power systems.

The Netherlands is not alone. Across Europe, governments person embraced the rhetoric of “de-coupling” from China adjacent arsenic their economies stay profoundly entangled with it. The seizure of Nexperia aligns intimately with European proponents of Donald Trump’s “liberation day” discourse, his run for economical disentanglement from China framed arsenic motivation redemption, and it foreshadows further clawbacks crossed the Maastricht-born union. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s telephone for “de-risking alternatively than decoupling” present rings hollow against this backdrop.

There is an implicit capitulation successful each this, 1 that began with the Marshall Plan successful 1948 and continues to signifier Europe’s responses to crises from the Russo-Ukrainian warfare to the contiguous contention implicit technology. Each occurrence has reaffirmed the aforesaid pattern: erstwhile Washington redraws its planetary lines, Europe adjusts accordingly. The Dutch seizure of Nexperia whitethorn beryllium justified successful the connection of sovereignty, but it exposes however small sovereignty remains. As the US and China conflict for technological dominance, Europe erstwhile again finds itself not arsenic a subordinate successful the caller order, but arsenic its terrain.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.