【By Observer Net Columnist Yanmo】
"If God does not exist, everything is permitted." — Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"
The Ansheng robbery case is perplexing. The US has struggled to seize TikTok, and even India needed to concoct a set of strategies to do so. However, the Netherlands directly "bought" Chinese companies using Cold War-era regulations, invading the territory with impunity. Where does this arrogance come from? What does it mean? How should we deal with it?
This is not an isolated "robbery," but rather part of the broader conflict between China and the Atlantic Alliance. The Netherlands' aggressive stance against China aligns with the strategy of its boss, the EU, as well as the demands of its boss's boss, the United States.
The Dutch government's justification for the robbery was that Ansheng attempted to transfer key technologies to its Chinese parent company, resulting in "loss of internal independence." However, the real reason is U.S. technology restrictions. After the Busan summit, the U.S. temporarily suspended technology controls, but the Netherlands still resisted under the pretext of "preventing the loss of key technologies," backed by the EU's "de-risking" strategy against China.
If we cannot use this incident to make Europe realize that the era of "great powers' plunder" has passed, we cannot blame these pirates for acting recklessly and claiming that robbing without consequences is justified.
Our main issue is how to prevent European countries from acting like robbers, protect Chinese investment interests, and maintain growth in trade with Europe. Two sub-issues are: how to act quickly and effectively, and how to master key technologies.
In conclusion, this problem is not easy to solve. A strategy of fighting while moving forward, adapting as circumstances change, may be the only way.
The Netherlands' open theft of Ansheng reflects the broader conflict between China and the Atlantic Alliance
Since the context is the conflict between China and the Atlantic Alliance, and the U.S. is the leader, if any member of this alliance causes trouble, we must involve the U.S. in the dispute to avoid "the superior dealing with the inferior." Regarding Europe, I still maintain my previous strategy of "divide and rule." The Atlantic Alliance has resilience, but also vulnerabilities; we must not let incorrect strategic views pacify Europe.
By "divide and rule," it does not necessarily mean dividing by country; we can also seek unity by party. We should deepen exchanges with pragmatic parties in Europe—such as Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Czech Republic's Civic Democratic Party (ODS)—to weaken the "de-risking" policies pursued by the European establishment. If China pacifies Europe, it will not help such parties rise.
Yes, after the Busan summit, China and the U.S. are now on equal footing. But as mentioned earlier, China has not achieved substantial victories because the fundamental nature of the confrontation between the two sides has not changed. As a result, in the coming period, the U.S. will avoid direct conflicts and increase the use of proxies to hinder China, with Europe being the most reliable proxy.
In short, the losses caused by China's concessions to the U.S. will be compensated by Europe, leading to a slowdown in Sino-U.S. relations but increased tension in Sino-European relations.
Although theoretically, China and Europe are both victims of U.S. theft, they should complement each other positively. However, in practice, Europe faces a dual dilemma. From their perspective, both China and the U.S. are "bandits." The U.S. steals directly, while China indirectly steals through its powerful industrial capabilities and free trade rules.
I have mentioned several times that China's biggest weakness is its super-strong productivity, which now includes strong innovation capabilities, giving it a kind of life-and-death power.
If China builds its own "camp," partner countries will follow out of admiration and take advantage, but Beijing does not engage in camp confrontation. Therefore, before a new model replacing the "camp" concept emerges, countries or supranational alliances with large markets will view China as a threat, since their industries struggle to survive due to China's superiority, which is more serious than being slightly harmed by the U.S.
Based on this, China's "hard line" against the U.S. is just the first stage of crisis management. The second stage is more challenging. Whether to adopt a soft or hard approach towards Europe is difficult to determine. A simple calculation of pros and cons is: if we lose the European market, where else can we compensate for the losses from the U.S. side?
This year, China's exports to Europe increased by 3.5% in the first half of the year. Industrial robots grew by 81.9% in the first quarter, high-end machine tools by 11.7%, electronics and electrical appliances by 7.7%, daily chemicals by 16.1%, and new energy vehicles by 82%.
The Netherlands, and even the EU, derive much of their confidence from this.
Cold War Mentality Lingers
Although we can say that the camp confrontation model is outdated and China advocates the "community with a shared future for mankind," from a practical standpoint, the first challenge of world unity is—how to continuously develop oneself while leaving room for others.
The underlying logic of the market economy is free competition, survival of the fittest. The West believes in this, so when they are at a disadvantage, they inevitably rely more on the camp confrontation model, attributing "anti-free competition" to China, claiming unfair subsidies and overcapacity, and launching a group attack.
The Netherlands using Cold War regulations to openly steal from Ansheng indicates that the Atlantic Alliance has not abandoned the Cold War mentality; rather, its camp confrontation mindset is deeply rooted. Although businesses are more pragmatic than politics, when facing survival crises, everyone becomes unscrupulous, allowing or even encouraging xenophobic political interventions to protect their own interests, euphemistically called "de-risking."
We should recognize that any major trade, commercial, or technological disputes between China and the Atlantic Alliance are no longer about reasoning, but about "consequences."
As mentioned above, since the other side claims you are unjust, the remaining question is who has the ability to interpret, or even change the rules of the game, which depends on the outcomes of the conflict. In plain terms, those who suffer minor injuries win, and those who suffer major injuries lose.
Looking back at the biggest dispute between China and Europe in 2024—the protectionism of new energy vehicles, the EU imposed anti-subsidy tariffs, and China imposed anti-dumping duties on certain European imports and conducted investigations. This case is not yet over, and both sides continue to fight and move forward. China is accelerating its factory construction in Europe to avoid tariffs, while the EU recently threatened to "set conditions" for Chinese investments.
Even with the EU's tariff barriers, China's new energy vehicle exports to Europe increased by 52% in January-September 2025, totaling 2.32 million units. At the same time, in the first half of 2025, European car exports to China decreased by 42% (Note 1).
China, which holds the advantage, adopts a strategy of maintaining (even if distorted) free trade, seeking actual gains rather than mutual destruction. The disadvantaged Europeans will continue to develop new protectionist barriers, possibly completely abandoning free trade.
In other words, as China's technology and scale continue to grow, its strategy of maintaining free trade will face increasingly difficult challenges, especially against the Atlantic bloc. If China fails to propose a method for "leaving room for others" or to make Europe taste the consequences of violating rules, the Ansheng incident will not be the last "robbery."
Germany, in the 2024 new energy vehicle dispute, belonged to the relatively protectionist side, as carmakers have significant interests in the Chinese market. However, by this year, China's rare earth control and the chip supply crisis caused by the Ansheng incident have weakened Germany's belief in free trade. Car manufacturers face a chip supply crisis on the production side, a decline in sales in China, and a failure to catch up with Chinese automakers in new energy technology. This situation will also undermine German companies' pragmatic orientation.
From rare earths to automotive chips, we can see Europe's new "Sinophobia" as a side effect of the Sino-U.S. rivalry, or as a natural burden of China's non-camp confrontation approach. The specific issue is that Chinese companies' investments in Europe have already become unsafe. What should be done?
Currently, China's handling of the Ansheng incident is "to consider the overall situation," ensuring the growth of new energy vehicles in Europe requires maintaining the supply of chips to European carmakers, making the Dutch government's robbery go without the deserved consequences. However, as mentioned earlier, this strategy has serious sustainability issues. "Fighting without breaking" requires more flexible tactical responses, considering taking down major offenders one by one to maintain the overall situation.
Preventing Europe from Becoming "Indianized"
The Ansheng incident is a spin-off of the 2024 new energy vehicle dispute, marking the emergence and testing of new forms of protectionist barriers. If the Dutch government openly robs Chinese companies without consequences, it may encourage other anti-China governments to imitate, learning from India's "cultivate and kill" tactics, hiding within the Atlantic Alliance to fight China, then letting the EU handle the "non-break."
Therefore, we must not adopt a conciliatory attitude toward the Dutch government. However, to find effective solutions, we need to first understand why the Netherlands dares to be so arrogant.
As long as the market is large enough and there is a desire for protectionism, foreign capital in such places will face political risks, especially foreign capital from different "camps," particularly in strategic industries.
The vulnerability of Chinese investments in Europe is highlighted in the Ansheng incident. Chinese investments in the Netherlands are concentrated in strategic industries, namely the semiconductor industry. Under the trend of Europe turning to align with the U.S. and protecting strategic industries, Chinese investments appear even more precarious. Conversely, Dutch investments in China are diversified, with manageable risks.
The EU stands on the position of anti-China regulation. From a grand strategy perspective, even if the Netherlands is a bandit, it will be protected. Therefore, besides the fact that China needs the EU market to partially compensate for the lost U.S. market, the EU's "suspicion of China" is the second source of the Netherlands' arrogance.
Moreover, in the technical aspect of automotive chips, since semiconductors are globally divided, even for mature process chips, China has not yet established a complete independent technology and supply chain. For example, high-end SiC/GaN chips depend on imported IP, high-purity wafer materials (such as silicon and GaN substrates) depend on Japan/Germany, and lithography machines still depend on ASML. This is the third source of the Netherlands' arrogance.
Of course, there are mutual dependencies between China and the Netherlands. For instance, in the semiconductor industry, raw materials, costs, supply chain completeness, and production capacity. Without China, not only the Netherlands but the entire Europe would be unable to achieve full autonomy. Although this is the case, as long as the Netherlands holds the above three advantages, it can achieve a lot with little.
In plain terms, whether it's exports or investments, China relies on the Netherlands (especially high-tech products), not the other way around. Therefore, punishing the Netherlands alone is not very beneficial for us.
I guess, even if the Netherlands continues to be tough on China, China will not respond with a complete cutoff of automotive chips, as this would expand Europe's resistance, gain sympathy for the Netherlands, and potentially trigger a united front among EU members.
Seizing the head, if the origin of the incident is the U.S., the best solution for China is to treat the actions of U.S. agents as U.S. actions and handle them within the framework of Sino-U.S. rivalry, simplifying the issue and avoiding being busy extinguishing fires everywhere.
On the other hand, Germany is the Netherlands' most important economic pillar. If the Netherlands takes a firm stance, China can close the negotiation door with the Netherlands and only talk with Germany. Use diplomatic tools more, and less economic and technological tools, to avoid substantial losses.
Additionally, global automotive giants are overly reliant on Ansheng. Whether this company is Chinese or Dutch, they must be prepared for the possibility of having alternative companies emerge soon. Although there are many alternative companies technically, such as Infineon, AMD, and STMicroelectronics, these companies focus on different areas and cannot immediately fill the gap left by Ansheng.
This time, the Netherlands' bandit operation will inspire these alternative companies to restructure their production lines, capturing Ansheng's current market share, including Japan and South Korea, which also have semiconductor production capabilities and automotive giants, will add new automotive chip production lines. This will be detrimental to the Netherlands in the long term. Of course, it will also encourage other Chinese domestic companies to enter the market. In other words, global supply chain restructuring seems inevitable.
However, the main uncertainty comes from U.S. political interference. This is why seizing the head is the best strategy for China. To maintain supply chain stability or benefit from supply chain restructuring, China must continue to use rare earths to pressure the U.S., preventing Washington from smiling and watching from the sidelines.
In major incidents, we should use strength to regulate the Atlantic leader, rather than explaining to the subordinates.
Top Five Trade Partners of the EU in 2024
Ultimately, Key Technologies Are the Most Important
In the competition of trade and industry, key technologies are ultimately the most important.
Key technologies for automotive chips are mostly based on global open-source architectures (such as ARM, RISC-V) and international standard processes, with patents mainly held by the U.S., Japan, and Europe. China's goal in catching up technologically is complete independence and the ability to "set the rules." Although there have been considerable achievements, it has not yet reached the target, so there are still many tough battles ahead in this competition.
Power semiconductors, microcontrollers, system-on-chip (SoC), AI and computing chips, communication and security chips, sensors and memory chips—China has made rapid progress in these areas, but has not yet reached the level of exclusive technology. These factors determine whether the supply chain restructuring will be favorable to us.
If the EU's "Chip Act" is to succeed, it needs two elements: first, "successfully attracting investments," and second, securing major customers. Currently, the chip boom comes from the U.S. AI customers. Trump successfully stole investments, even drawing European capital to the U.S., which makes the EU have only China to cooperate with. However, the Netherlands' bandit behavior has annoyed Chinese investors, indirectly ensuring the failure of the "Chip Act."
China's technological progress is still accelerating. Although it hasn't reached the level of setting the rules, this technological development prospect is sufficient for China to set the rules in the investment field. Our confidence comes from production cost-effectiveness. If Ansheng is not operated by Chinese investors, the price of its automotive chips will inevitably soar, making it easier for alternative companies to capture its market share.
Therefore, although some key technologies are still in the hands of the Atlantic Alliance, the EU's "de-risking" strategy will only weaken its advantages. China should dialogue with the EU with strength, demonstrating the consequences of harming Chinese interests, rather than persuading with gentle words. Only by making Europe feel that "de-risking" is the highest risk option can we stabilize the situation and promote the growth of trade with Europe.
"If God does not exist, everything is permitted," the meaning of Dostoevsky's words is that morality is based on the desire for rewards or the fear of punishment. The Dutch government acts unscrupulously, thinking that God doesn't exist, and China should be afraid. This trend must not be allowed to spread, otherwise the constantly deteriorating Europe will inevitably become "Indianized."
Note 1: Data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA)
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