Beijing Launches $50 Billion COVID-19 Countersuit Against Missouri, Republican Senator

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Dec 18, 2025 - 11:00 Updated: Dec 18, 2025 - 10:47
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Beijing Launches $50 Billion COVID-19 Countersuit Against Missouri, Republican Senator

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China’s communist regime has sued the state of Missouri and its former attorney general in a Chinese court, apparently in retaliation for a March federal court ruling that awarded Missouri $24 billion in a COVID-19 lawsuit against Beijing.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced China’s lawsuit against him, the state of Missouri, and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is now co-deputy FBI director, in a statement on Dec. 16. Schmitt filed the COVID-19 lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and several other Chinese entities in April 2020 when he was Missouri’s attorney general.

“I’ve been banned from Communist China, and now I am being sued and targeted by Communist China in a $50 Billion lawfare campaign, and I’ll wear it like a badge of honor,” Schmitt said.

“China’s sinister malfeasance during the COVID-19 pandemic led to over a million Americans losing their lives, economic turmoil that rocked our country for years, and an enormous amount of human suffering, and as Missouri Attorney General I filed suit to hold them accountable.

“Instead of trying to defend its indefensible behavior, Communist China responded with frivolous lawfare, attempting to absolve themselves of all wrongdoing in the early days of the pandemic.”

The CCP’s initial cover-up of the virus outbreak has been well-documented. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the State Department said had been conducting experiments on bat coronavirus starting in at least 2016, continues to be suspected as the source of COVID-19, given its proximity to a local wet market where clusters of infection cases were first reported in late 2019.

“This novel lawsuit is factually baseless, legally meritless, and any fake judgment a Chinese court issues in this lawsuit we will easily beat back and keep from being enforced against the people of Missouri or me,” Schmitt said. “This is their way of distracting from what the world already knows, China has blood on its hands.”

The lawsuit in China was filed in the Intermediate People’s Court in Wuhan by the Wuhan municipal government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Chinese plaintiffs demand joint compensation of 356.4 billion yuan (about $50.5 billion), according to the complaint, accusing Missouri’s 2020 COVID-19 lawsuit of defaming the plaintiffs’ reputation and causing them “huge economic losses.”

In addition to monetary compensation, the Chinese plaintiffs are asking the defendants to issue public apologies via U.S. media outlets, including CNN and The Wall Street Journal, as well as Chinese news outlets, according to the complaint.

“I find it extremely telling that the Chinese blame our great state for ‘belittling the social evaluation’ of The Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said in a statement on Dec. 16.

“This lawsuit is a stalling tactic and tells me that we have been on the right side of this issue all along. We stand undeterred in our mission to collect on our $24 billion judgment that was lawfully handed down in federal court.”

The 2020 COVID-19 lawsuit accused China of running an “appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance, and inaction” during the initial outbreak. It also accused China of hoarding personal protective equipment and limiting its exports.
In March, a Missouri judge found the CCP liable for $24 billion for hoarding COVID-19 protective equipment. In response to the judge’s ruling, Bailey, who was Missouri’s attorney general at the time, said that he would collect “every penny” of the award and seize Chinese-owned assets.

Hanaway’s office said that the state will continue to obtain certification that will allow the attorney general to begin seizing Chinese-owned assets, including real property, financial interests, and other holdings tied to Beijing, according to the statement.

On Dec. 17, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) applauded Schmitt for “standing up to this ridiculous lawfare campaign,” according to his X post.

“Communist China must pay for unleashing the COVID plague on the world and for waging economic war on America for decades,” Cotton wrote.

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