China’s commerce ministry issued a stark warning Saturday about potential worldwide semiconductor shortages, citing escalating tensions between Dutch chipmaker Nexperia and its Chinese operations.
The automotive industry worldwide faced production delays in October when Beijing restricted exports of Chinese-manufactured Nexperia semiconductors following the Netherlands’ seizure of the company from Chinese parent firm Wingtech. These semiconductors play crucial roles in vehicle electronic systems.
Although diplomatic efforts helped alleviate the initial chip shortage, tensions between Nexperia’s Netherlands-based headquarters and its Chinese division have worsened. The Dutch headquarters supports removing Wingtech’s ownership, while the Chinese unit wants that control reinstated.
China’s warning followed accusations Friday from Nexperia’s Chinese packaging division that the Netherlands headquarters had shut down computer access for all Chinese employees.
“(This has) provoked new conflicts and created new difficulties and obstacles for (company-to-company) negotiations,” China’s commerce ministry stated on its official website.
“Nexperia Netherlands has seriously disrupted the company’s normal production and operation, and if this triggers a global semiconductor production and supply chain crisis again, the Netherlands must bear full responsibility for this,” the ministry added.
In Friday’s response, Nexperia’s Dutch operations didn’t deny taking the IT measures but challenged claims that production was impacted at the assembly and testing plant in China’s Guangdong province.
Following Wingtech’s loss of control in September, Nexperia’s Chinese division declared independence from its Dutch parent company. Since then, both sides have accused each other of negotiating in bad faith, while the Dutch headquarters has stopped supplying wafers to the Guangdong facility.
Mediation attempts by Beijing, The Hague, and Brussels have failed to break the deadlock.
China has criticized the Netherlands for insufficient pressure on Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters to compromise and for allowing Amsterdam court proceedings that transferred Wingtech’s ownership to a Dutch attorney in October.
