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.

EU South: The other countries.

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.

For the Netherlands the whole world is just a board game for local politics.

Seeing international media overthink this as some kind of deep strategy is mildly amusing.

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.