A power struggle inside a mid-tier European semiconductor company has snowballed into a global auto industry scare. The battle for control of Nexperia, a Chinese-owned Dutch chipmaker, has disrupted supplies of critical components to automakers worldwide, forcing Honda to halt production at a key plant in Mexico.

What began as a governance dispute in the Netherlands has now exposed just how brittle the world’s tech and manufacturing ecosystem remains, even after years of talk about 'de-risking' from China. And while there are tentative signs of a resolution, the episode has again underscored how geopolitics can upend production lines half a world away.

Why the Dutch government stepped in

The crisis burst into the open in mid-October when the Dutch government, citing national security co

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