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missouri state has increased its bid to seize sugar property US to seek $24 billion award in case accusing Beijing of lying to the world COVID-19 pandemic.
Missouri asked the State Department to formally notify China that it intends to pursue assets wholly or partially owned by the Chinese to satisfy a judgment handed down by District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh in March.
The move stems from a lawsuit alleging China hoarded personal protective equipment during the early months of the pandemic, causing harm to Missouri and its residents. A federal judge ruled for Missouri earlier this year after China declined to participate in the lawsuit, calling the lawsuit “pretty absurd” when it was filed in 2020.
Beijing has refused to recognize the decision and said its actions during the pandemic are not subject to US jurisdiction.
Missouri Attorney General Kathryn Hanaway told reporters on Wednesday that she was compiling an inventory of properties and other assets owned by the Chinese government across the US.
The effort to seize Chinese assets comes at a time when Washington’s relations with Beijing are worsening Sharp decline after Donald Trump launched tariff war – It appears that the thaw has begun following the President’s Meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea,
In his first presidential term in 2020, Mr Trump demanded China pay $10 trillion as compensation to the world for the death and destruction caused by the pandemic. China said Mr Trump “repeatedly ignored the facts and tried to shirk his responsibilities for failing to respond to the epidemic and divert people’s attention”.
“China’s pattern of actions strongly suggests that it had knowledge of the existence and human-to-human transmission of COVID virus In early September 2019, Judge Limbaugh stated in his decision.
“China’s actions also show that China is engaged in a deliberate campaign to suppress information about the COVID pandemic to support its campaign to hoard PPE from Missouri and an unsuspecting world.”
Some legal experts doubt whether Missouri can receive an award because federal law generally protects foreign countries from lawsuits in U.S. courts.
At the height of the pandemic, Lord Jim O’Neill argued that while China’s leaders will continue to live with mistakes, it is “less clear why other countries think it is in their interests to point out China’s early errors rather than working towards solutions”.
“For many governments, naming and shaming China appears to be a ploy to divert attention from their lack of preparedness,” the former Chatham House chairman said.
“Equally worrying is the growing criticism of the World Health Organization, not least by Donald Trump who has attacked the organization – and threatened to withdraw US funding – for allegedly failing to hold the Chinese government accountable.”
an associated press Last year’s report said that the Chinese government has come to a standstill Despite statements supporting open scientific investigation, meaningful domestic and international efforts were made to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak.
There was little public discussion about the source of the disease, first reported from the central city of Wuhan in December 2019. According to the news agency, this pattern continues today, with laboratories closed, collaborations broken down, foreign scientists forced out, and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.
The agency said health authorities in Beijing closed the laboratory of a scientist who sequenced the virus as early as January 6, 2020, and barred other researchers from working with him.
In Missouri, Ms Hanaway told reporters that “it was a long process for us to be able to enforce that decision, but now we will enforce that decision, just like any other decision in the region”.
He said Missouri will not try to take assets from companies owned by Chinese citizens or businesses.
“I may be proven wrong over time, but I believe we need to go after the assets that are actually owned by China,” she said. “We feel the state has suffered a loss. We want to recover. It costs money to provide health care and other benefits to people as a result of the pandemic.”
As a first step, Ms. Hanaway’s office sent a letter to a federal court on Wednesday asking it to send copies of the ruling to the secretary of state’s office in China for processing.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said Beijing’s policies and measures during the pandemic were “acts of national sovereignty and are not subject to the jurisdiction of US courts.”
“The so-called epidemic compensation lawsuits fabricated by some forces in the US ignore basic objective facts and violate fundamental legal principles,” spokesman Liu Pengyu said. “They are completely malicious frivolous lawsuits and political manipulation with extremely sinister intentions. China firmly opposes them and will not accept any so-called default judgment.”
The case was initially dismissed in 2022 with Judge Limbaugh ruling that Missouri could not sue China or the other defendants. But an appeals court allowed one part of the lawsuit to proceed: the allegation that China had hoarded personal protective equipment such as respiratory masks, medical gowns and gloves.
After Chinese officials did not respond, Judge Limbaugh accepted Missouri’s estimate of past and potential future damages of approximately $8 billion, tripled it as allowed by federal law, and added 3.91 percent interest until it was collected.
The lawsuit was originally filed by former state Attorney General Eric Schmidt, a Trump ally who later won election to the US Senate.