Chinese city sues Missouri for US$50 billion in tit-for-tat Covid-19 litigation
Wuhan’s government is one of three parties accusing the US state of using the virus to stigmatise China
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said on Tuesday that her office was notified last week of the civil lawsuit filed in the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court.
The defendants are the State of Missouri, represented by Governor Mike Kehoe, as well as two of the state’s former top legal officers – Eric Schmitt, now a US senator, and Andrew Bailey, now a co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Chinese parties accused the American defendants of trying to “politicise” Covid-19, use the virus to “stigmatise” China, “manipulate origin-tracing” and “slander” China by accusing it of “covering up the pandemic information and hoarding personal protective equipment”.
The three Chinese plaintiffs were defendants in a lawsuit filed five years ago by Schmitt, then Missouri’s attorney general, which also targeted China, China’s Communist Party, several national ministries and the Hubei provincial government.