Imagine applying this level of analysis to other companies, states and nonstate actors..

> Mr. Kissinger should have mentioned that he left statesmanship with China for business with China. Nowhere does he discuss Kissinger Associates, the highly successful consulting firm he founded almost three decades ago, which does a thriving business providing entrée to Chinese officials and business leaders for foreign companies. Indeed, Mr. Kissinger has spent more time negotiating business than negotiating policy.

Isn't this just following China's playbook? Important companies in China often have Party members firmly in control.

I wonder what will be copied next, maybe other nations will start their own "Great Firewall..."

A "great firewall of Europe" is already more or less in development (watch at the european cybersec budget). It surely will be more "open" than in China but... Europe would like to be able to "watch" the internet traffic of any citizen (for their own safety and agains terrorism and pedophilia obviously and as usual)

Please note that "competitors" may be allies too: when the US give money to its own companies, or pass some extra-territorial laws... Europe try to do the same. To keep the playing field levelled ;-)

I know this is HN and "China bad", but not everything China does is "bad"

If you look at the Fifth Republic, most of the nationalizations in France happened under socialist governments, democratically elected, and with a mandate to do so from the population. Even the more rightwing French governments follow similar rules and nationalize companies to protect them and their workers (for instance from takeovers), or protect from foreign influence (and not just from countries with more imperialistic tendencies, for instance Italy for the ports).

Nothing of the sort applies here. France, its population and and government, would almost certainly approve of a nationalization in the first place if it were to protect their interests. But these Soitec changes seem relatively innocuous, and some of the claims are really paranoiac. For instance believing that a former CEA employee or administrator would continue to work undercover while at another company.

Of course France is a democratic country and thus its interests often conflate with the ones of its citizens. Nothing would prevent them from administering a company in a way that best suits their vision of the world, quite often matching a government perspective without any concertation.

[1] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalisations_en_France