The COVID courtroom war between China and one American state has crossed the Pacific. A Chinese court has started hearing a defamation case against the US state of Missouri and several of its current and former attorneys general, brought by the Wuhan municipal government, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences, Reuters reported on Wednesday. According to an official notice published on Tuesday, the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court in central Hubei province has formally accepted the case.

Source: Reuters

The plaintiffs allege that Missouri, former Attorneys General Eric Schmitt and Andrew Bailey, and current Attorney General Catherine Hanaway orchestrated, promoted and carried out what they call “malicious and abusive litigation” in the United States, and fabricated and disseminated false information related to the coronavirus pandemic. The Missouri attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.

Source: Reuters

What the Chinese side wants

The Chinese plaintiffs are demanding a formal public apology, the restoration of their reputation and compensation for damages, Reuters reported, with the South China Morning Post putting the compensation claim at 356.44 billion yuan ($53.44 billion). The GlobalPost reported that the Wuhan court held a hearing on Friday with proceedings continuing this week, and that the lawsuit was filed in Wuhan in April last year as a direct response to Missouri's attempt to collect the $24 billion US judgment.

Source: Reuters / GlobalPost

How the legal war began

Missouri opened this fight in April 2020, filing the first lawsuit of its kind in the United States against China, Hubei province and other Chinese defendants, seeking to hold them responsible for alleged economic damage from the pandemic. Chinese defendants did not defend the case in the US court, and in March 2025 a US federal judge entered a default judgment of about $24 billion against China. Missouri officials then moved to collect on that judgment, including by looking at Chinese state-owned assets in the United States — the step the Wuhan plaintiffs cite as the trigger for their own case.

Source: Reuters / GlobalPost

Neither judgment is likely to be paid in any simple way. American courts have no power to collect inside China, and Chinese courts have no power to seize assets in Missouri; both cases instead operate as state-level signalling inside the wider US-China confrontation, where a state attorney general's lawsuit and a provincial-level city's counter-suit now mirror each other almost dollar for dollar — $24 billion claimed in Missouri, about $53 billion claimed back in Wuhan.

Source: Reuters

What happens next

The Wuhan hearings continue this week, with no ruling announced. The questions that follow are practical as much as legal: whether Missouri responds formally or ignores the case as it says China ignored its own, whether the Chinese court enters a default-style judgment of its own, and whether either side attempts enforcement against the other's assets abroad. For now, the pandemic's origin dispute — unresolved scientifically and politically six years on — has a new venue: a courtroom in the city where the virus first emerged.

Source: GlobalPost