{"id":508198,"date":"2025-10-18T01:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/508198\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T01:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:13:11","slug":"editorial-europe-can-only-play-so-much-tech-hardball-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/508198\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial | Europe can only play so much tech hardball with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, the European Union disclosed plans that it could force Chinese firms to hand over technology<\/a> and intellectual property to European companies if they want to operate locally. That is ironic as it seems only yesterday that Westerners were accusing China of forced tech transfer and violating intellectual property rights.<\/p>\n

The latest push by Brussels could apply to mainland companies seeking access to key digital, green tech and manufacturing markets such as electric cars, wind turbines and batteries. They could also be required to satisfy preset levels of use of EU goods or labour.<\/p>\n

The aggressive plan followed the Dutch government\u2019s seizure of Nexperia<\/a>, a wholly Chinese-owned semiconductor maker on economic security grounds. The reason given is that the chips produced by Nexperia need to be prioritised for use in Europe in cases of supply disruptions, though US pressure was no doubt a contributing factor. While international headlines focused on Beijing\u2019s latest export controls of rare earths and its escalating trade war with Washington, another trade and tech war with Europe is starting and could become just as nasty.<\/p>\n

The Dutch seizure of Nexperia has elicited an angry response from Beijing, which is still smarting over the Dutch firm ASML\u2019s refusal to sell its most advanced chipmaking equipment or service the systems already sold to Chinese customers, again under US pressure.<\/p>\n

The Europeans seem ready for a trade war of their own with China, partly because Washington has demanded it. However, two other factors have collided and brought this about.<\/p>\n

Europe is lagging in the races between the two superpowers over advanced chips and artificial intelligence. As part of the European Chips Act, which was finalised in 2023 and has allocated billions of euros to subsidise chip manufacturing and research on the continent, the EU aims to be more independent of the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week, the European Union disclosed plans that it could force Chinese firms to hand over technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[166324,1395,2000,299,5187,166323,1699,1824,6854,1477,166325,166322,133285],"class_list":{"0":"post-508198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-asml","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-chips-act","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-intellectual-property","17":"tag-netherlands","18":"tag-nexperia","19":"tag-tech-transfer","20":"tag-tech-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}