[RAMJAC]

Maybe I was being a bit flippant, but I don't buy the "goodwill" argument. It's probably went, and by the article, something like this:

China: Great, two can play this game, how about you now lose access to X,Y,Z that may be manufacturing, fabs, investments, rare earths, Chinese markets, etc.

Netherlands: Hmm, that costs more than this company by an order of magnitude. Take it.

This isn't taking into account back channel dealing, conflicts of interest or really anything besides a surface level reading of situation. They had them by the balls.

[tgv]

Idk. It's hard to hit The Netherlands in particular, since trade is with the EU as a block, not with individual countries.