Rotterdam via WikipediaRelations between China and the Netherlands were especially in the 1980s and 1990s tense, because of the survival strategy of the shipbuilding company RDM in Rotterdam, who wanted to deliver submarines to Taiwan. China threatened at the time with a boycott of the Rotterdam port, but also other companies, including airline company KLM had huge difficulties in getting licenses in China, because of the RDM issue.
The court case against a former director of the Rotterdam port authority Willem Scholten is held because he illegally gave financial guarantees worth 180 million to RDM to compensate them for giving up the Taiwanese order. Now it appeared from notes of the RDM board of supervisors from January 2003 that the company had already received 100 million US dollar from China in compensation.
Scholten supposedly got a huge payback for support RDM, is alleged in the court case.
RDM-director Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen was at the time involved in many deals in China, including a firm producing helicopters. RDM in the Netherlands went bankrupt, but Van den Nieuwenuyzen continued doing business in China.
