Experts: Dutch suspension of Nexperia order should be followed by concrete steps

The Netherlands' move to suspend its administrative order against Nexperia - a Chinese-owned semiconductor company based in the Netherlands – will only be meaningful if the Dutch government takes concrete steps to restore stability to the global semiconductor industrial and supply chains, experts said on Thursday.

Chinese and Dutch government officials held two rounds of consultations regarding the Nexperia issue in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday. During the talks, the Dutch side offered to suspend the administrative order issued under the "Availability of Goods Act", according to a statement released by China's Ministry of Commerce.

For China, the "suspension" of the order is substantive only if the Netherlands takes steps to re-establish the conditions to their prior state, before its government intervened, Wang Yong, a professor of international relations at Peking University, said.

"The real measure of non-interference will be whether the Chinese-appointed leadership can return and the nationalization measures are rescinded," Huang Mengmeng, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of European Studies, said.

Huang said a credible solution requires not only suspension, but also concrete assurances that similar administrative interventions will not be repeated.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday that China welcomes the Dutch move as "a first step in the right direction", toward a proper resolution of the issue. However, it cautioned that this falls short of addressing the root cause — the need to fully revoke the administrative order.

China hopes the Dutch side will continue to demonstrate sincerity in cooperating with China and put forth genuinely constructive proposals to resolve the problem, the spokesperson said.