BRUSSELS — U.S. authorities expressed their concerns about the CEO of China-owned chipmaker Nexperia ahead of the company being seized by Dutch authorities.
Newly published court proceedings reveal that the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry and a U.S. government bureau that protects U.S. critical technology met in June to talk about Nexperia, the Dutch-based chipmaker owned by Chinese technology group Wingtech.
In the meeting, U.S. officials said the removal of the CEO, Wingtech founder Zhang Xuezheng, would be necessary to exempt the company from U.S. export controls.
“It is problematic that the CEO of the company is still the same Chinese owner,” the U.S. said, according to minutes from the meeting quoted in the court documents. “It’s almost certain that the CEO should be replaced to qualify for an exemption on the entity list.”
The emergence of U.S. pressure comes after the Dutch government announced Sunday it had in September seized control of Nexperia, based in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The company was acquired by Chinese Wingtech in 2019. For the period of a year, Nexperia can’t go ahead with major company decisions without explicit approval of the Dutch government.
Nexperia also said Tuesday it was hit by U.S. export controls at the end of September as a wholly owned subsidiary of Wingtech, which has been on the U.S. “entity list” since December last year. The U.S. extended its export control regime on that day to affiliates (at least 50 percent owned) of companies already on the list.
China hit back with export controls of its own a couple of days later. The commerce ministry imposed export controls on Nexperia China and its subcontractors on Oct. 4, amounting to a ban on the export of certain components manufactured in China, Nexperia said.
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