Nexperia in no-man’s-land: how a chip company became caught between two world powers

Like a never-ending film, the chips snake through the Nexperia factory. Here in Dongguan, they turn out millions of tiny transistors every day. Six percent of all chips produced worldwide come from this inconspicuous complex in the south of China.

Armed with a colossal calculator, one of the operators monitors how the continuous copper strips filled with chips wind onto large reels, like the rattling film rolls of a cinema projector. Between the production lines, employees move through the factory in light blue cleanroom suits, their faces hidden behind masks. It’s hard to tell them apart, except for the employee number on their left arm.

Dongguan is the tail end of chip production. Nexperia’s factory in the German city of Hamburg supplies silicon wafers full of chips; in China, they precisely saw them into pieces. Then each individual chip receives a casing of plastic and copper. These components then go to Nexperia’s distribution center in Hong Kong, and from there to electronics manufacturers on all continents.

In October 2024, Dongguan is running like clockwork. The simple switches they assemble here end up in irons, microwaves, TVs and phones – in every device with a plug or an internet connection. Or with wheels: Nexperia’s main customer is the automotive industry, a heavy user with more than six hundred such chips in every car.

​The bestseller is a type of chip package from the 1960s: the SOT23, once invented by Philips engineer Piet van de Water. „Every day we make one hundred million units of this hero product here,” explains plant manager DJ Wen. Such chips cost only a few cents apiece. The only way to profit from these dirt-cheap components is by working efficiently and making no mistakes — at Nexperia they measure defects per billion units.

Wen displays awards from satisfied customers like Bosch and Continental. His trophy cabinet fills the long wall of the conference room, which has been named „Nijmegen.” That is the name of the city where Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters is located.
What Wen doesn’t know is that the relationship with Nijmegen will be completely poisoned a year later. Even the never‑ending film of chips will come to a grinding halt.

A few machines in Dongguan still carry the Philips logo, reminding the operators of the Dutch company that built this factory a quarter century ago. The buildings and offices still breathe that Philips heritage. Through squinted eyes, you could imagine yourself in the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Philips set up operations in Dongguan to package and test chips manufactured in Hamburg. This had previously been done in Hong Kong, but that city became too expensive for back-end production.

DJ Wen picks up the framed photo from the opening ceremony in 2000: ten men in suits, European and Asian, holding a transparent rod. A symbol for an uninterrupted production line, in the heyday of globalization. After 2006, Philips’ semiconductor division continued as NXP. That company wanted to specialize in more complex chips for the automotive industry and was eager to shed its standard products — diodes and switches for power circuits. Some of these chips are smaller than a grain of salt. Chicken feed, they called it at NXP. Asian competitors use a more poetic name: industry rice, an indispensable ingredient for the daily meal of electronics makers.

Nexperia, named after an old Philips processor, was created when NXP sold its standard products division in 2017 for $2.75 billion to JAC Capital and WiseRoad, investment funds with ties to the Chinese state.

No one protested. A year earlier, the same investors had taken over NXP subsidiary Ampleon, which makes far more advanced chips. The Netherlands did not yet have a law to review or block such acquisitions by foreign companies — that only came in 2023. The American regulator CFIUS was also fine with it, Dutch executives were told when they came to the Pentagon to ask for approval.

The Chinese investors paid more than 20 percent above the other bidders. For China, NXP’s ‘castoff’ was of crucial importance. Nexperia was the first acquisition of a major Western chip manufacturer with its own intellectual property. Exactly as Xi Jinping’s Made in China 2025 plan prescribed: the country aims for its own chip production to reduce semiconductor imports. China wasn’t afraid to start on the bottom rung of the ladder, with chicken feed and rice.

Day One, that’s how Nexperia remembers the date when the separation from NXP was finalized. Tuesday, February 7, 2017, felt like a liberation day. For the first time, the company could invest significantly, starting with an expansion of the factory in Dongguan. „We’re not sexy, but we are profitable,” then-CEO Frans Scheper told NRC .

Because Nexperia was performing well, the Chinese investment group JAC barely interfered with operations. That changed in 2019, when Nexperia came into the hands of Wingtech, the publicly listed company of Zhang Xuezheng. ‘Wing’, as his English nickname goes, paid $3.6 billion for the company. He raised money with support from home appliance manufacturer Gree and regional Chinese governments that were eager for new chip factories and willing to go deeply into debt for them. Wing dreamed of becoming a major, global player in the chip industry, with Nexperia as his springboard.

Since June 2024, NRC has been following Nexperia from the inside. The plan was to tell the story of a European chipmaker in Chinese hands that seemed able to swim against the geopolitical tide. But things turned out differently. 

On October 4, 2025, China imposed an export ban on the factory in Dongguan, cutting off the global automotive industry from essential chips. The trigger was an intervention by Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Karremans (VVD), who ‘froze’ the company on September 30 using emergency legislation. According to the minister, Wing had started dismantling Nexperia’s European operations. 

Only a day later, the Enterprise Chamber suspended CEO Wing after European co-directors accused him of mismanagement. Shortly before that, they themselves had nearly been fired: „I could have grabbed a pile of money and walked away,” says one of them. 

In one tumultuous week, Nexperia became global news, and since then a fierce conflict has split the chipmaker in two. Wing’s dream turned into a nightmare for everyone involved, himself included. 

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Part 1: Running in clogs

Nexperia welcomes its new boss

Who is this man, the European Nexperia managers wonder. In a villa next to a hotel in the Chinese city of Kunming, Nexperia owner JAC Capital holds a roadshow in 2018: the top brass give a presentation to woo Chinese investors ahead of a stock listing in Hong Kong. Sitting in the audience is a man dressed all in black, wearing black sneakers. When they are introduced to him, the European managers notice how strikingly respectfully he is treated.

Zhang Xuezheng, or ‘Mr. Wing,’ was 43 at the time, a Chinese entrepreneur from Shenzhen, trained as an industrial engineer and already a self‑made billionaire. He worked for Chinese factories of ST Microelectronics and state-owned ZTE before striking out on his own in 2002. In 2006, he founded Wingtech Technology, which designs circuit boards for phones – the motherboards containing all the essential electronics of a device.

You’re more likely to find Wing in running shoes than in a suit: an avid runner, he completes multiple marathons a year. His company is also growing fast, at the relentless pace of the electronics industry in and around Shenzhen. By 2014, Wingtech had become one of the world’s largest original design manufacturers, producing 100 million smartphones a year for brands like Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung. Clients provide the designs; Wing’s factories turn them into finished phones. In his Shanghai home, near the Wingtech tower, he keeps a small museum of his most successful devices.

But Wing knows that chips are China’s future. Wingtech and Nexperia are poised to ride the explosive growth of China’s automotive industry. That industry is shifting to electric vehicles, which require more and better chips. Wing likes to model himself on Jack Ma, the co‑founder and former CEO of Alibaba and one of China’s richest entrepreneurs. A photo of him with Jack Ma adorns his desk. With Nexperia, Wing wants to become that kind of successful businessman.

The Nijmegen management would would rather not fall into the hands of a Chinese industrial player. A Hong Kong listing seems better to them, keeping them at more distance from Chinese owners and avoiding alarming American clients or provoking the wrath of US President Trump. During his first term, Trump launches both a trade war and a tech war with China. When the US bans American companies from supplying components and software to Huawei in 2019, the company’s smartphone sales collapse, costing Nexperia 100 million dollars in revenue. It is the first time geopolitics really hurts.

Theft

The fact that their future owner, Wing, was convicted in China in 2005 for theft of trade secrets from ZTE and spent several months in prison is something Nexperia’s management only finds out in 2022. They conclude that he served his sentence and may have been undermined by a former employer. Entrepreneurs in China, they say, often operate ‘in gray areas’ anyway, and the Chinese securities regulator had already imposed several fines on Wing. But Wing gets the deal done: as soon as the Nexperia roadshow ends, the company is sold in a closed auction open only to Chinese bidders. Wingtech wins.

The Dutch government then begins to investigate Wing’s past. Around 2019, the intelligence service AIVD approaches Nexperia on several occasions with questions about Wing. Several conversations take place in a back room of an upscale hotel along the A2 highway in Den Bosch. There, the agents hint that they already know a great deal about Wing’s background.

But Nexperia must sign on the dotted line; it has no say in the sale itself. On the flight back to Amsterdam in January 2020, after the official ceremony in Shanghai, the Dutch executives ask themselves whether the takeover is really good for the company. They see one consolation: at least they have not suffered financially.

Thanks to the sale, Nexperia staff get the chance to cash in their virtual shares a few years earlier than expected. „I paid for two university educations for my sons with it”, says a former employee. According to him, it amounted to roughly two years’ salary, and he suspects the payout for top management was even larger.

Once Wing becomes owner of Nexperia, the first CEO, Frans Scheper, takes early retirement just three months later. Scheper had expected to remain CEO for another three years, but Wing thinks he can do better himself.

Ambition

Because of the pandemic, the new Chinese boss has to start the job remotely in 2020. Wing directs Nexperia’s 12,500 employees via online meetings, where he unveils a plan to expand in Europe and China and to quintuple revenue from 2 billion to 10 billion dollars by 2030. On the European side of the screen, they need a moment to recover from so much ambition. Still, they embrace Wing’s vision. After all, the market is on their side: during the coronavirus crisis, the whole world is clamouring for chips and money is pouring in, as they say in Nijmegen.

To celebrate the takeover, bright red T‑shirts are handed out bearing the slogan: ‘Wingtech loves Nexperia – we are family.’ Wing presents himself as charming to the people he wants to work with. When you speak to him at such moments, his voice sounds soft, modest. But Nexperia employees soon discover that Wing also has a different, more forceful tone. The Dutch board members urge him to avoid top‑down management as much as possible, warning that it only backfires in Europe.

Analysts at the University of Virginia who examine the Nexperia acquisition in early 2020 foresee similar problems: „Chinese employees are used to sacrificing their personal lives for their boss; in Europe, personal development and a good work‑life balance are highly valued.”

Only after the Chinese lockdown ends, in May 2022, does Wing meet a few hundred Nijmegen employees, in a building across from headquarters on the Jonkerbosplein. Everyone is curious about the new boss, who barely speaks English and has to have his words translated by his assistant. A welcome gift awaits the runner from China: a pair of clunky Dutch wooden clogs, hard evidence that some cultural gaps still need bridging before Wingtech and Nexperia truly become one family.

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Part 2: Quick fix

Has knowledge been leaked?

‘European quality, Chinese prices’ is the slogan around which Wing is building his global chip company. He throws himself into Nexperia’s enormous client portfolio but immediately runs up against geopolitical boundaries. In the United Kingdom, he stumbles over the acquisition of the Newport Wafer Fab, a chip factory in Wales that had long underperformed and passed through countless owners.

The first CEO, Frans Scheper, set up the Newport collaboration as an expansion of the Manchester factory and to eliminate the need for a Taiwanese foundry, to which the production of several chip designs had been outsourced. But things go wrong when Nexperia acquires a majority stake in Newport in 2021. The British owner is unhappy with the deal and wakes up politicians: do you realise that Nexperia is a Chinese company, with a Chinese CEO? Under the National Security and Investment Act, the UK government re‑examines the deal, even though Nexperia’s chips are not considered ‘sensitive’ and, on paper, should not fall under this security law.

Charles Smit, head of legal affairs at Nexperia, who at the time oversaw relations with the government, emphasises to the British authorities the economic growth opportunities for Wales. In his eyes, Wingtech is a proper and transparent publicly listed company, not a Chinese state vehicle, as others claim. Smit asks the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for support in the Newport case, but it yields no result.

Suspicion

Since the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the world has started to look at chips differently. China continues to support Russia economically, and Nexperia’s chips are turning up in Russian drones. Nexperia tries to appease the British with concessions, but it stands no chance once the US gets involved. Republican members of Congress call on President Biden to do „everything possible to prevent British chip knowledge from falling into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.” „Otherwise, we can no longer trust the United Kingdom,” they write in an urgent letter.

A British Nexperia employee begs in an email to his local MP not to reverse the Newport acquisition. His words are prophetic: „Otherwise, the technology from Manchester will move at an even faster pace to a modern factory that Wingtech is building in Lingang, China.’

In November 2022, the British government forces Nexperia to sell the Newport factory again. The suspicion proves contagious: in 2023, Germany cancels a European subsidy for the factory in Hamburg. Trade Minister Robert Habeck refuses to put tens of millions of euros of German tax money into technological knowledge that, according to him, could end up in China.

Nexperia’s Chief Operating Officer Achim Kempe and Chief Financial Officer Stefan Tilger, both German, spend countless hours at ministries in Berlin but get nowhere. Germany has just sold part of the port of Hamburg to a Chinese company, making support for Nexperia a sensitive issue. That the chips would be a danger to German national security is nonsense, Kempe argues. „Our products turn power on and off; they don’t process or store any data.”

Grandmother

Everything Chinese is suddenly suspect, and Wing feels discriminated against. ‘Western companies often complain that they are treated unfairly in China, but the reverse is exactly the same,’ he says. He therefore pursues his own strategy: since the Manchester factory cannot expand in Wales, expansion must take place in China.

It is Achim Kempe who points out to Wing the importance of a Chinese chip factory for Chinese customers such as the fast‑growing automotive industry. As early as the summer of 2019, Kempe is warmly received at Wing’s home in Meizhou and meets his family, including Wing’s grandmother. ‘If we want to grow, we don’t have enough capacity and we don’t have a wafer factory in China, only back‑end operations,’ Kempe tells his new boss.

Half a year later, Wing announces that such a factory is coming. In December 2022, WingSkySemi moves the first ASML chip machine into Lingang, near Shanghai. Around the corner is Tesla’s gigafactory, which can produce nearly a million electric cars per year.

But WingSkySemi, which does not fall under the Wingtech group, is not acting like an ordinary supplier, the European directors feel. Wing wants Nexperia to pay top dollar for wafers and sign offtake guarantees before the first wafer rolls out of the factory. His fellow board members call these terms ‘too aggressive’: Nexperia B.V. does not do business with other suppliers this way either. Still, the contract is signed, which, according to Wingtech, shows that all parties are satisfied with the terms.

Getting the chip factory running proves challenging. WingSkySemi hires Nexperia specialists from Manchester to help. While they have no experience with 12‑inch fabrication, they do give hints on how to calibrate the chip machines. Producing chips is a specialized craft: not a mechanical trick, but more like black magic with physical and chemical processes that influence each other. WingSkySemi lacks the discipline for this, a Nexperia employee explains. „They work fast and sloppy, always looking for a quick fix.” There are no shortcuts in chip production, he adds.

It is in Nexperia’s interest for WingSkySemi to succeed, but the company’s own chip designs are not supposed to be copied. The Chinese factory soon releases similar MOSFET chips under its own brand. A former Nexperia employee who dealt with the company’s intellectual property says: „We developed loads of patents and all that information went to WingSkySemi. It’s impossible to prove that knowledge was leaked, but they started selling their products out of nowhere from the moment we had our chips made there.”

The European directors object to these products that WingSkySemi releases under its own name in early 2024. They fear this will give the Americans a reason to put Wingtech on the Entity List. That is the list the US uses to cut off Chinese companies from American technology, and that fate is also hanging over Wing’s head. Of all the setbacks so far, that would be the most severe.

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Part 3: Wing’s model

Nexperia trades European business style for Wing’s approach

Something has to give, Wing realizes, because Nexperia is stranded in no man’s land. „The Americans say we’re a Chinese company,” he tells NRC in May. „And in China they say we’re a Dutch company. How are we supposed to survive like this?”

From Wing’s office in Nijmegen, on the eighth floor of the tower at Jonkerbosplein, the stadium lights of De Goffert glow in the evening, where Nexperia-sponsored NEC chases goals and survival in the league. But when Wing is at headquarters, he rarely leaves his office. Colleagues nudge him to circulate, to at least step out and say hello once in a while.

The Chinese CEO bought a house in Vinkeveen in 2020 for €3.75 million, close to Schiphol Airport. Much more efficient than Nijmegen, Wing thinks — efficiency is his mantra. He hates hotels and buys villas in almost every city where his companies are based, including San Francisco, where his wife lives and his two children study. He tries to visit them every month.

The Vinkeveen house often serves as a substitute for Nexperia’s headquarters for meetings with the management team. When he’s in a generous mood, Wing has his driver pick up visitors flying in from Germany at Schiphol.

Wing starts his days at six in the morning, running five or ten kilometers around the Vinkeveense Plassen — the only pleasure he allows himself. Then come the endless meetings and business reviews, often five or six hours uninterrupted, at two tables pushed together. They don’t move quickly; every word has to be translated.

The villa is sparsely furnished but has a good kitchen. Sometimes Wing’s personal chef prepares a meal afterward, and when the mood is right, Wing brings out the Moutai — a Chinese liquor with more than fifty percent alcohol. With bottles costing over five hundred euros each, the CEO shows his hospitality, though the harsh aftertaste takes some getting used to for many guests. More than once, the Moutai ends up poured into a flowerpot.

Always available

Wing can’t stand what he sees as European sluggishness. Nexperia’s Chinese competitors innovate much faster, he believes. Wing is „rather impatient,” says one manager. He pushes up the tempo and forces online meetings into weekends, on Saturday mornings or Sunday evenings. Six twelve-hour workdays are not unusual in the Chinese tech sector, and Wing treats that as the norm. During a dinner in Vinkeveen, the CEO jokes that everyone should always be available, just like him: 24/7. Nobody laughs.

The Chinese CEO compares Nexperia to a „solid truck that doesn’t drive fast enough” and insists the company must shed its Dutch mentality. „Not by becoming Chinese. We are a global company. You shouldn’t manage that with one culture, but with a logical model.” His model.

When Wing tries to explain it during a two-day retreat in Noordwijk, the group’s eyes glaze over. „Wing’s model” mainly raises questions. Even his management team can only guess at its logic; in their experience, the semiconductor market works very differently from electronics manufacturing in China.

Wing is a micromanager who wants to see data, and lots of it. The total addressable market, down to the smallest detail: every potential customer, all their products, and every component inside them. If you have all the data, you can solve all problems, Wing firmly believes.
But the demand is impossible to meet. Some managers start feeding him Excel files stuffed with randomly selected and sometimes fabricated numbers, just to satisfy his requirements. When Wing digs in and discovers the fake data, he explodes. Those are the moments when the CEO starts shouting and the word kao — damn it — flies across the table. The interpreter tries to give it a polite spin, but everyone has already understood perfectly.

Wing keeps hammering away at his model and brushes aside critical questions or doubts. It is in his nature to demand obedience. As a founder, he is used to making every decision and being involved in everything. As Wing explains it himself: „A general manager who can’t lead his company can leave. But a founder never abandons his child.”

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Part 4: Surrounded

Pawn of the superpowers

It is November 2024, and German Chief Operating Officer Achim Kempe is sitting in his office at Nexperia’s factory in Hamburg. A century earlier, the plant stood on the edge of the city; now the complex is hemmed in by residential neighborhoods. In the twenty‑five years he has worked successively for Philips, NXP and Nexperia, Kempe has watched the decline of the European chip industry accelerate. Of the more than ten former Philips chip factories in the EU, only Manchester and Hamburg are still active, while the Nijmegen plant, still owned by NXP, is preparing for closure. Will anything be left?

In the summer of 2024, Nexperia celebrated its centenary in Hamburg. A giant canopy was stretched above the factory’s central courtyard to keep out the rain, but in his speech Wing predicted a bright future for the next hundred years. Afterwards there was a party for all employees, with bratwurst and a band, and for those who wanted it, a selfie with the CEO.

Nexperia announced that it would invest €200 million of its own money in renewing the Hamburg factory. The plan is to tap into the GaN market, with gallium nitride chips for modern fast chargers and laptop power supplies. The company is also targeting SiC, silicon carbide chips that can handle the high voltages of charging stations and electric cars.

Kempe says he is impressed by Wing’s plans to move up the value chain. The Hamburg factory has not seen so much investment since 2019; the workforce has grown from 900 to 1,600 employees.

At the Hamburg site, now surrounded by housing, expansion is only possible within the existing footprint. Wafer production takes place in two multi‑story buildings, and wafers are shuttled on carts in elevators. It is far from ideal.

Should the Hamburg chip factory move to a new, more spacious site in Asia? China beckons, but the financial logic is weak. Hamburg runs on proven technology from decades‑old production lines that have long since been paid off, processing 6‑ and 8‑inch wafers. Sometimes as many as half a million Nexperia components fit on a single wafer. For these tiniest components, upgrading to 12‑inch production makes no sense; as Kempe sees it, the silicon is simply too expensive.

Outburst

No chips means no cars. Since the chip shortage during the pandemic, everyone in the auto industry has become acutely aware of how vulnerable semiconductor production lines are. Car manufacturers never used to turn up themselves — Nexperia mainly supplies their suppliers, such as Bosch or Continental — but now companies like Volkswagen and BMW regularly knock on Achim Kempe’s door. These major customers want flexible production chains, and that is what Kempe and his team are working on.

Nexperia divides its customer base into three categories: customers who prefer chips from China, customers who want chips from outside China, and customers who simply choose the cheapest option. The struggling European automakers fall into that last group. Swept aside by Chinese competitors, they have to watch every cent.

Nexperia’s Chinese customers are also nervous. Their nightmare scenario is a single Trump outburst that leads to exports to all Chinese companies being blocked. In that case, Nexperia would no longer receive wafers from Europe and would end up in serious trouble, as Kempe puts it. That is why Nexperia must also have wafers produced in China, at WingSkySemi.

Yet another danger hangs over the company. China has, following the United States, put in place an export control regime with which it can cut off rare earth metals and other critical raw materials. Processing chips in Dongguan is therefore also a potential chokehold, an economic weapon China can deploy at will. The ever‑running reel of chips can be stopped whenever Beijing chooses.

Immediately after Trump’s reelection, South Korean, Japanese and American automakers begin demanding „China plus one”: they want Nexperia to deliver chips from outside China, to avoid getting trapped in a trade war. Nexperia does have a fallback option in Malaysia. In Seremban, about 20 percent of the chips from Hamburg are processed. Malaysia should grow faster, but that is difficult because Nexperia makes so many different products.

On the industrial estate in Seremban, a new four‑story factory was completed in 2022, but it has stood empty for a long time because Wing keeps postponing the growth plans. Nexperia’s CEO wants the production chain in China to run smoothly first; the rest of the world will have to wait.

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Part 5: On a leash

Overhauling the governance structure

„We’re not some scary Chinese company,” the managers of Nexperia BV tell each other. This is the operating company that controls all the group’s international sites. Even though their owner and top executive comes from China, Nexperia sees itself as a start-up with a fresh orange logo, crucial European technology and headquarters in Nijmegen. But how do you convince the rest of the world of that?

From late 2023, Nexperia works with the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Economische Zaken, or EZ) to find a way to eliminate the „perception problem”: the idea that the company poses a national-security risk because it has a Chinese owner. One early success is the acquisition of Nowi in November 2023, a Delft-based start-up that develops chips which harvest electricity from ambient light or radio signals to make mobile devices more energy-efficient. Because this does not involve highly advanced technology, the Nowi acquisition does not have to be assessed under the Vifo Act, the security screening the Netherlands introduced in 2023 to control foreign takeovers.

EZ wants to keep Nexperia in the Netherlands and promises to support the company. But to do so, the governance structure must be overhauled. At the start of 2024, Nexperia BV’s board comprises three people: Charles Smit, Wing and his sister Zhang Qiuhong.

When Smit retires in early 2024, his position as director is taken over by Ruben Lichtenberg, who had already succeeded Smit as chief legal officer. Lichtenberg becomes statutory director alongside Wing, and sister Qiuhong steps down from the board in consultation with EZ. Although Wing as CEO can still take most decisions on his own, two directors must always sign off on major resolutions.

According to EZ, Nexperia needs an independent supervisory board. If such a body is put in place, the ministry can back the company, for example in talks with foreign governments or large customers. The supervisors must be given powers over a long list of ‘reserved matters’, including the ability to block any transaction worth more than one million euros. The same applies to any deal or partnership in which technological know-how from Europe or the Netherlands risks disappearing. A Chief Security Officer will monitor information security and, as a final step, the company must prepare for a stock-market listing — possibly on Amsterdam’s AEX — in order to reduce Wingtech’s stake. The deadline is firm: the changes must be implemented by the summer of 2024, officials at Economic Affairs insist. Otherwise, the government will not treat Nexperia as a Dutch or European enterprise.

Lichtenberg discusses the plans with them, together with chief corporate affairs officer Jean-Pierre Kempeneers. Wing attends some of these meetings. Even though his company is about to be put on a Dutch leash, the Chinese chief executive voluntarily cooperates with the new governance structure. He remains optimistic, convinced that globalization cannot be stopped anyway.

Blacklist

When his phone starts ringing in late August 2024, Ruben Lichtenberg picks up unsuspectingly. He is at a hotel in Merano, among the picturesque mountains of Northern Italy, on vacation. It is one of Wing’s confidants calling out of the blue – Wing himself never calls.

Wing’s view of the talks with EZ has suddenly flipped, and a week later Lichtenberg has to answer to the management team and explain why on earth he is giving away control over Nexperia. The managers who know that Lichtenberg has been negotiating with EZ about the governance changes now anxiously keep their heads down. Lichtenberg is flabbergasted, but passes on the message to EZ that Wingtech, as a publicly listed company in Shanghai, cannot simply hand over the keys without permission from the Chinese stock‑exchange authority. Nexperia wants to retain control over all „reserved matters”.

Wing’s reversal is understandable. If he were to loosen his grip on Nexperia, he would soon have nothing left. In the autumn of 2024, it becomes clear that the United States intends to place Wingtech Technologies on the Entity List, the blacklist maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). The Americans do not trust the shareholdings of Chinese local governments and regard Wing as a bad actor because of his previous conviction and fines.

On 2 December 2024, BIS adds Wingtech to the Entity List, together with 140 other Chinese companies. Because of the resulting trade restrictions, Wing is forced to divest nine other Wingtech companies that assemble MacBooks for Apple, among other products. The sale feels like giving away a child, Wing says: „I can’t just let it die in my hands; I have to let someone else raise it now.”

From 2025 onwards, Wingtech consists only of Nexperia. Wing’s other company, the chip factory WingSkySemi, sits outside the Wingtech group and has few customers besides Nexperia. Ideally, Wing would like to fill his factory with more Nexperia orders or merge the two companies.

Backdoors

Meanwhile, impatience is growing at the ministry. Without the governance changes being implemented – and without formal approval from the ministry – Nexperia is touting a not‑yet‑granted endorsement from EZ that would recognize the company as a Dutch and European player. In reality, Chinese owner Wing still holds the reins, and there is no guarantee he will keep the European factories and offices intact.

In January 2025, Nexperia announces a reorganisation at its Nijmegen headquarters in which dozens of the roughly four hundred employees lose their jobs. The company does not say why. But more trouble looms over Nexperia. The Americans are preparing an expansion of the export ban to close „backdoors”. This Affiliates Rule will also impose an export ban on subsidiaries of companies already on the Entity List.

In the chaotic early days of the second Trump administration, nobody dares predict exactly when the new rule will take effect, but one thing is certain: Nexperia, as a Wingtech subsidiary, will soon be hit. If you can no longer use American software or spare parts, producing chips becomes far more difficult and Western customers grow nervous.

Dutch diplomats warn the Americans. „Do you realise how important Nexperia is for suppliers to the automotive industry?” they ask. They plead for extra time, because Economic Affairs is in talks with Wing and will also consult with China. After all, Beijing must be willing to cooperate on a solution.

For the Americans, postponement is unthinkable, because the Affiliates Rule is an intervention affecting tens of thousands of companies worldwide. Nexperia is, admittedly, collateral damage, but the US expects that such individual problem cases can be solved later. First implement the rule, then apply a quick fix – that is the plan.

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Part 6: The pleasure garden

Wing consolidates power

The tomato soup and mini‑croquettes are ready as thirty Nexperia employees file out of the conference room at the Jan Tabak hotel in the Dutch town of Bussum at the end of May. They are on their lunch break after a morning spent listening to the Chief Human Resources Officer. He sits at the head of the table, his name scrawled in black marker on a folded A4 sheet: „Mr Wing”. As if they did not know.

The Nexperia chief has taken on the CHRO role, making it easier to appoint or fire people. He is tightening his grip on the company and can also determine his own compensation.

The fuss around the Entity Listing eats up time and energy, Wing says during a conversation with NRC in Bussum. It frustrates him. „It’s bullshit that I had to sell my companies. Wingtech has never done anything wrong or broken the law.”

Among the conifers in the garden of the Jan Tabak hotel, he patiently poses for the photographer. Wing’s message: „Nexperia has weathered geopolitical storms in its hundred-year history and even survived wars. Entrepreneurs focus on the long term and do not get distracted by short-term politics. We must hold on to globalisation.” He also believes Nexperia should move to 12‑inch wafers. „That is more efficient, and innovation moves much faster when you produce chips on large wafers.”

His plea has another motive. Wing is trying to keep his other company, WingSkySemi, afloat; like many other Chinese chip factories, it is struggling with overcapacity, leaving expensive chip machines standing idle and only burning cash. But if Nexperia produces more small chips on large 12‑inch wafers there, it generates more revenue for WingSkySemi – especially when 70 percent of such an order has to be paid upfront.

In May, Wing insists that Nexperia increase its wafer orders for WingSkySemi. The total value is 200 million dollars, while internal estimates suggest an order of at most 70 to 80 million is needed. Those extra 120 million dollars’ worth of wafers are overkill, money down the drain, some managers warn. Yet it is also in Nexperia’s interest that WingSkySemi does not collapse, and Wing pushes the deal through. In his view, the order falls within existing agreements. It plants the seed for an internal conflict that will ultimately end up in court.

Balloons

The Loenen Pleasure Garden, as business magazine Quote puts it in an article, is an enormous estate with a private park in the Dutch town of Loenen aan de Vecht. Wing set his sights on it in the spring; it is close to his villa in Vinkeveen, but quieter and more spacious. And it has a swimming pool. He wants to turn it into a crisis centre, a place where managers from Germany and Asia can quickly fly in to join forces against all the threats facing Nexperia. Nexperia BV pays 6.1 million euros for the complex, accepting the deferred maintenance as part of the deal.

Wing would prefer to live in Loenen himself, until he hears he would have to pay rent to Nexperia. He does celebrate his fiftieth birthday there in June. It is a party with a wine tasting, a barbecue and cheerful balloons in the trees. The atmosphere is good, despite everything, and Ruben Lichtenberg takes Wing aside to give him a pep talk. „Wing, I’m going to help you navigate this difficult situation, where you as a globalist are being harassed by the Americans.”

Wing thanks his fellow director for his dedication, but makes clear that he – and only he – makes the decisions. Meanwhile, Wing works on his reputation: he tries to obtain a diplomatic passport in Malta in exchange for a Nexperia research centre on the island, hoping such a Maltese passport will give Nexperia a more European image. Wing also instructs his corporate affairs team to inquire whether he might receive a Dutch knighthood, or the state title „Datuk” in Malaysia. Honorary citizenship of the city of Hamburg appeals to him as well.

Project Rainbow

Nexperia’s future is uncertain, as is Wing’s. In June, Economic Affairs again urges the implementation of the new governance structure, and Wing meets outgoing minister Vincent Karremans in The Hague on July 2.

It’s a pleasant conversation, no question about that, although the chances seem slim that Nexperia can avoid the Entity List. If Nexperia wants to qualify for an exemption, Wing will almost certainly have to leave as CEO. American diplomats already told the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs this in June.

Wing understands he must give up the CHRO role, he tells Karremans. But as soon as the Nexperia delegation walks out the door, across the courtyard of the ministry on Bezuidenhoutseweg, Wing tells his colleagues he has no intention of stepping down as CEO.
Behind the scenes, Nexperia has been working on ‘Project Rainbow’ since June. It’s the code name for a joint effort to find alternatives to American software and services before the export ban takes effect. One of the options: switching to Chinese apps and office systems.

The project name ‘rainbow’ symbolizes the glorious future that lies ahead for Nexperia. But at the end of July, Wing overhauls the company strategy. For three days straight, the management team meets in Loenen, where the chief announces a major restructuring. He has had personnel costs analyzed and wants to reduce the number of Nexperia employees by 45 percent. He leaves out how and why. Furthermore, Wing wants to ban working from home — he’s furious when he finds out that the Nijmegen headquarters is regularly deserted on Friday afternoons. The headquarters should move to Amsterdam, he believes.
Wing also presents Nexperia managers with a survey in which they can indicate whether they feel they can say anything during meetings.

According to Wing, that’s allowed, but at critical comments, Wing’s gaze usually quickly drifts to a corner of the room or he walks out the door.
Normally, Nexperia meetings end with a meal and a drink, Moutai for enthusiasts. This time Wing immediately shoots off in his dark Maybach. He’s detaching himself, his colleagues see, and the atmosphere in the company during the summer months is appalling. Wing tolerates no contradiction. Anyone who wants to speak to him must come to Loenen. And anyone who won’t listen can leave.

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Part 7: Freak-out weekend

Two extraordinary emergency measures

Lichtenberg refuses at the end of August to sign off on Nexperia’s large orders with WingSkySemi. It is therefore no surprise when the lawyer is shown the door on 9 September. A few days earlier, he had already written an email to Wing protesting a change to the bank mandates: suddenly CFO Stefan Tilger, the head of treasury and the tax director no longer had control over Nexperia’s bank accounts. Their mandates had been reassigned to three of Wing’s confidants, appointed by the chief.

Then things move quickly. A day later, Wing sidelines both Stefan Tilger and Achim Kempe. Wing wants to take over the role of chief operating officer to gain control over the European factories. Tilger and Kempe are offered severance packages, as is Lichtenberg. The lawyer negotiates over his severance pay to buy time, but also because he hesitates.

Rumours about Lichtenberg’s possible departure leak to a journalist at local newspaper De Gelderlander, but no article follows. On 12 September, Nexperia’s chief legal officer sits down with Jean‑Pierre Kempeneers at Economic Affairs. They report that there is still no agreement from China on the changes to Nexperia’s governance.

Lichtenberg sits there apathetically but says nothing about the dismissal procedure.

Lichtenberg then consults with Tilger and Kempe. Their conclusion: Wing sees Nexperia and his Chinese partner WingSkySemi as one and the same, he does not care about the rules, and he is trying to hollow out the European arm before Nexperia ends up on the Entity List. This cannot be allowed to happen, they decide, and the three of them resolve to go to the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal, to sue their chief for mismanagement and ask the court to intervene immediately.

Stress

„When something is wrong, we do not walk away, we do not look away, but we speak up,” read the posters that have been hanging in all Nexperia buildings for the past few years. The slogan even appears on the display of the coffee machines.

But Ruben Lichtenberg doubts whether he should resign or proceed with the lawsuit. He sleeps poorly. His lawyer points out the consequences: think about the personal shit you are bringing on yourself. The chief legal officer knows he will drag his colleagues with him into the stress, though he cannot imagine what misery still awaits Nexperia.

I could grab a pile of cash and walk away, Lichtenberg thinks, but then I could never look at myself in the mirror again, and I could forget my career as a lawyer.

He had, after all, put up those posters himself.

Emergency law

Economic Affairs is worried. The Dutch ministry has been in talks with Chinese authorities since July about a solution for Nexperia, but Wing seems to have gone off the rails. Officials launch their own investigation and on 18 September they find the first indications of „the improper transfer of money, technology and knowledge to an entity outside the Nexperia group,” as minister Karremans would later describe it in a letter to parliament.

Tension is running high in The Hague. Economic Affairs wants to act quickly, and the crisis team set up for the Nexperia case is working under intense pressure and strict secrecy.

A senior official with a legal background digs up an ancient emergency law, the Goods Availability Act (Wet Beschikbaarheid Goederen, WBG). This WBG dates from 1952, six years before American engineer Jack Kilby cobbled together the first working chip, and was intended to prevent shortages in emergency situations. Companies subject to an order under this law need a licence if they want to change anything in their operations or in the production of crucial goods, such as fuel or food. Or chips, the raw material of modern society.

For more than seventy years, the WBG has never been used. Now, in the view of Economic Affairs, this obscure law offers a way to keep Nexperia on a short leash for a year and retain it for Europe. Karremans decides on 25 September that he wants to do this quickly and quietly. A day later, he informs his fellow ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs of his plan.

Economic Affairs discovers that the three European Nexperia managers intend to go to the Enterprise Chamber. But Karremans does not dare to gamble on the court stepping in. The ministry will later join the proceedings as an interested party, once the three managers have filed their petition with the Enterprise Chamber.

On the last weekend of September, a few days before he is due at the Enterprise Chamber, Lichtenberg hears via his lawyer that Economic Affairs is preparing a measure. „We are going to take action at Nexperia soon,” is the message. They do not say exactly what or on which day. Nor that a wave of diplomatic panic is sweeping through The Hague.

Panic

A freak‑out weekend – that is how an American official describes the hectic days before 29 September. That is the date when BIS announces the Affiliates Rule. This rule places Nexperia on the same blacklist as its Chinese parent company Wingtech. The consequence: the chipmaker will soon no longer be able to rely on software, equipment or spare parts from the US.

The Americans do not know, however, that the Netherlands is about to intervene at the company. They find out only when, less than forty‑eight hours in advance, they notify their contacts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague that the Affiliates Rule is about to take effect, a short‑notice warning that is standard procedure.

Then panic breaks out. Economic Affairs does not want to tell the Americans exactly what intervention is coming, only that it cannot wait. At Foreign Affairs, it is immediately clear how the outside world will interpret the Dutch move: as a coordinated action with the US, with both measures deliberately happening at the same time. In reality, the overlap is mainly the result of poor communication. Try explaining that to China.

That weekend, everyone calls everyone. An emergency meeting is convened at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and later at the American embassy. Via Foreign Affairs, a request goes to Washington, to BIS, to postpone publication of the Affiliates Rule – even by just a week.

Impossible, comes the reply. A government shutdown is looming in the US and the amendment has already been submitted to the Federal Register; BIS does what it can, but the bureaucracy is implacable.
On 30 September, the inevitable happens: Karremans imposes the emergency law on Nexperia, virtually simultaneously with the publication of the Affiliates Rule in the US. On October 1 comes the Enterprise Chamber case, which is just as extraordinary as Karremans’ intervention.

The court intervenes immediately, without hearing the parties. Such an ex parte decision, as it is known in legal circles, is rare. The Enterprise Chamber sees „well‑founded reasons” to doubt the „correct policy and proper course of affairs at Nexperia”. The trigger is the financial conflict over the large orders at WingSkySemi – the 12‑inch discussion – and the way Wing suddenly seized control of the bank mandates and moved to fire his European top managers. The court suspends Wing, stripping the Chinese chief of control over his Nexperia shares. The Enterprise Chamber appoints former NXP executive Guido Dierick as temporary director, and management of the shares is handed to lawyer Arnold Croiset van Uchelen.

To outsiders, and certainly to Beijing, the court’s intervention and the Dutch minister’s measure look like a coordinated coup under American pressure. Economic Affairs tries to explain to China what is going on, but the Chinese response is harsh. On 4 October, Beijing imposes an export ban on all Nexperia activities in China; as a result, the factory in Dongguan can no longer ship chips abroad. China will no longer be pushed around by the US or the Netherlands. As a Chinese diplomat tells NRC: „We don’t act, but we do react. And quickly.”

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Part 8: The break-up

Nexperia split in two

The characteristic kink in the facade of Nexperia’s Nijmegen headquarters has an angle of 8 degrees. Architect Francesco Veenstra, its designer, calls it „a connecting and inviting gesture.” Overnight, his design appears on all the front pages: Nexperia is world news.

Wing has been definitively sidelined. On October 7, the Enterprise Chamber confirms the earlier order, after a hearing in Amsterdam attended by the legal teams of both parties. On October 12, Wingtech reports via social media platform WeChat that the company is a victim of „excessive interference” and „discrimination against companies with Chinese investors.” The message omits that the chief was suspended for mismanagement, because according to his colleagues he wanted to use Nexperia’s money to save WingSkySemi.

The WeChat post disappears after a short time, but the Nexperia news is already racing through China. It sparks outrage among Wingtech investors and Chinese entrepreneurs with interests in Europe, who vent their anger on social network Xiaohongshu. They fear their companies will be hijacked by the ‘Dutch VOC pirates’, and call the Netherlands America’s lapdog. Because both Karremans and the Enterprise Chamber initially do not make their decisions public, the real reason remains unknown for a long time.

Karremans also faces criticism in Europe: he should have first consulted with Brussels and Berlin on such a sensitive matter. After all, the German automotive industry cannot do without chips, and certainly not without those from Nexperia.

In reality, Karremans did not anticipate such a fierce reaction from China. He hoped with a quiet intervention to secure the delivery of chips to European automakers. There had long been consultation with Germany about Nexperia’s future, but in the week before the intervention, Economic Affairs tried to keep the circle as small as possible to prevent leaks.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) takes a hard line: if automakers suffer from chip shortages, that’s the Netherlands’ fault. It doesn’t take long before automakers warn of production stops due to chip shortages, the German brands and their suppliers first. Chip prices shoot up, if they’re available at all.

World leaders

The most powerful people on earth also turn their attention to Nexperia. On October 30, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping shake hands as they leave the small Korean Air Force building at Gimhae Airport. The world leaders have just negotiated over soybeans, gallium, and rare earth metals. They also discussed ‘industry rice’ – the small legacy chips that Nexperia packages in China.

Trump raised the Nexperia issue at the urging of the American automotive industry. America comes first as always, but Berlin and Tokyo also called Washington to warn about chip shortages: automakers in those countries have factories in the US, with tens of thousands of American employees.

The great powers press pause on their trade war. China suspends restrictions on rare earth metals and the Americans put their Affiliates Rule on ice. BIS had meanwhile already arranged an exception for Nexperia, because Wing is temporarily sidelined by the court decision.

On Friday afternoon, October 31, Henna Virkkunen holds an emergency online consultation with Nexperia. She is the European Commissioner responsible for technology policy. But she doesn’t know what emerged from the talks between Trump and Xi — Brussels and The Hague were not included in their negotiations. Amazement prevails in Europe that automakers have no proper backup for Nexperia. And the sad realization sets in that the EU, which would like to be somewhat more autonomous, cannot do without China even for the very simplest chips.

The White House announces on November 1 that China is again allowing exports of critical legacy chips from Nexperia. In practice, companies must submit an application for this, allowing China to determine which country or which company gets priority.

As soon as China cautiously resumes deliveries, this offers an opening to normalize relations between the Netherlands and China. Karremans indicates he wants to suspend his emergency law as soon as the chips start coming in again. But the minister causes irritation – not only among the Chinese, but also among Dutch diplomats – when he tells the British newspaper The Guardian that he would „do it all over again” in this „economic thriller,” in which he himself plays a leading role. An overly self-assured tone doesn’t help clear the diplomatic chill.

Only after a delegation of top officials from Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs has traveled to China for consultations does Karremans withdraw the emergency law. But Nexperia’s problem is not solved.

Painful

As finely as a wafer is sawed into individual chips, so brutally has Nexperia been split in two. After the Enterprise Chamber’s ruling, the Chinese branch declares itself independent from headquarters Nexperia BV. The factory in Dongguan is no longer under Nijmegen’s control and sells the chips directly, no longer via the international distribution center in Hong Kong. Payment is only possible in renminbi.

This break hurts both sides: both Nexperia-Dongguan and the Hamburg factory are not running at full capacity, and now no new wafers are going directly to Dongguan anymore. Major automakers are still buying wafers in Hamburg to ship them to Dongguan themselves. Smaller customers risk getting stuck, because the chip shortage is not yet resolved: automaker Honda therefore shuts down production in China and Japan for a few days in January. In an interview with Bloomberg, Wingtech chairman Ruby Yang blames this chip shortage on the lack of new wafers from Europe. She also claims that Economic Affairs and Nexperia collaborated to pry the company loose from Wing’s holding Wingtech.

Perhaps the first days after the break at Nijmegen headquarters felt briefly like that first liberation day in February 2017, when Nexperia broke away from NXP. But for employees it’s painful that they must suddenly avoid colleagues with whom they previously worked closely. It’s also complicated because some lines have not yet been cut. For instance, MOSFET chips still go from the Philippines to Chinese customers — that branch delivers the largest part of Nexperia’s revenue.

Chief corporate affairs Jean-Pierre Kempeneers has not been part of Nexperia since November, due to „difference of opinion,” as they say. It’s one of the consequences of the split unfolding after the tumultuous week at the end of September. Some departments in Europe worry about reorganizations now that the company is in rough waters. „If we don’t produce normally within two months, we’ll lose most of our customers,” says one manager. And the bitter irony is: now that the chip market is picking up again after a prolonged dip, Nexperia could actually be running at full capacity.

‘Completely insane’

Although the radio silence between both camps has been broken, the schism looks increasingly permanent. The parties are suing each other back and forth over financial disputes, while customers wait for their daily portion of chicken feed and industry rice.

Nexperia BV needs money to accelerate existing expansion plans in Malaysia and thus take pressure off the automotive industry. That requires additional financing from investors or banks.

Nexperia China is looking for alternative wafer suppliers to keep feeding Dongguan. With WingSkySemi and some other Chinese players, Wingtech hopes to serve the national automotive industry, in line with China’s drive to rapidly reduce dependence on foreign automotive chips.
Soon it will be China plus one: two different Nexperias, one in Europe and one in China, each making life difficult for the other. „Completely insane,” sighs one manager. „This is the craziest situation I’ve ever been in.”

Wing demands control back over Nexperia BV by appealing the Enterprise Chamber ruling. It was not a fair process, his lawyers claim, because Wing barely had time to respond, and they argue that Karremans must substantiate his allegations. A follow‑up hearing awaits, where both parties will have their say, and this legal battle could last months, even years.

US bureaucracy

In Dongguan, the never‑ending reel of chips is turning again. By now everyone knows that Nexperia’s chips, however small and simple, are just as indispensable as rare earth metals. China has shown it doesn’t shy away from using access to such resources as an economic weapon. Not even if that leads to international outrage.

The diplomatic crisis that arose after the Dutch minister’s intervention made it difficult for Nexperia to repair the breach and restore the supply chains. But Karremans’ intervention didn’t come about after a well-timed one-two punch with the Americans; instead, the Netherlands collided with US bureaucracy that refused to budge.

The US did, with their far-reaching Affiliates Rule, create the conditions whereby Wing saw his options in the West shrink. Nexperia probably could have kept operating with export restrictions, but it’s uncertain whether all customers would have wanted to stay.

Wing was already provoked by the forced divestment of the Newport factory, the blocking of the German subsidy in Hamburg, and the forced sale of nine companies after Wingtech was placed on the Entity List. He didn’t want to let go of Nexperia and therefore tightened his grip on it, instead of relinquishing control.

Economic Affairs tried to protect Nexperia against the export ban. Until the last moment, the ministry sought a solution with Wing. Karremans saw no choice but to intervene after Wing fired his European managers and changed the bank mandates. That directly contradicted his earlier commitments to Economic Affairs about a new governance structure.

A Dutch knighthood is probably no longer in the cards for Wing. The suspended chief has also not yet appeared in public, and it is unknown whether he is in China, in the US, or somewhere in between. „Wing is an opportunist,” says a Nexperia manager. An entrepreneur who seized his chance, but saw his dream of becoming a global player fall to pieces.
The world no longer has room for globalists.

De journalistieke principes van NRC