Perhaps something could have been done via the EU. (No, I know, France/Italy/Spain/Germany are way too obsessed with their exports to PRC.)
Been there/done that - Sweden was unjustly bullied by China and got next to no support from EU. That was a mask off moment for some of us. It seems that for member states like Sweden and the Netherlands, we're supposed to just pay a lot of money in order to get toll-free access to the internal market.
Edit: I would welcome a split into EU North and EU South. Sort of like Aldi North and Aldi South.
EU North: UK (welcome back!), Norway (hello!), Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Estonia.
What if I told you that China has more influence over the EU than it has over the Kamer der Staten-Generaal( the Dutch parliament), thus they are using the EU to pressure the dutch. The irony is that European Sovereignty is respected when all the countries of Europe are able to make their own sovereignty respected i.e. it is each of the individual states making their own sovereignty respected that actually elevates the sovereignty of Europe, the EU by pressuring, disregarding and relegating the sovereignty of the member states devalues the collective sovereignty of Europe. Additionally adversaries need only focus on having leverage over EU officials and the EU officials will do their bidding for them.
The current Dutch government is a bunch of egotistical fascists made up of a coalition of parties that try to get one over on the other by any means necessary.
They fell after a year because of that but are still in power until a next one can be formed. They've been like this for 6 months due to our excruciatingly slow election system that requires months to prepare an election. When that finally happened the results weren't much better.
The CPC leadership have plenty of personal assets stashed in the EU/UK. It would be easy enough to take them to the cleaners by prosecuting them for violating Chinese AML laws.
You definitely don't want Holland or UK in your new union. With the rise of fascism there, Farage in the UK (and Brexit was purely xenofobia driven) and the PVV, FvD, JA21 in Holland owning nearly a third of seats.
The EU is getting worse though yes with their damaging of the gdpr, trying to force chatcontrol etc.
Been there/done that - Sweden was unjustly bullied by China and got next to no support from EU. That was a mask off moment for some of us. It seems that for member states like Sweden and the Netherlands, we're supposed to just pay a lot of money in order to get toll-free access to the internal market.
Edit: I would welcome a split into EU North and EU South. Sort of like Aldi North and Aldi South.
EU North: UK (welcome back!), Norway (hello!), Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Estonia.
EU South: The other countries.