Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has cast news that she is being sued by the Chinese government as a badge of honor, pointing to the lawsuit as proof that her aggressive push to collect on a roughly $25 billion court judgment tied to the COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact.
But experts in international law say the lawsuit, filed in China earlier this year and announced last week by Hanaway, is more likely to do the opposite — making an already remote chance that Missouri will ever collect that money even slimmer, while potentially exposing U.S. assets abroad to retaliation.
Hanaway said last week in a news release that China is demanding a public apology from the state in a complaint filed in the Intermediate People’s Court of Wuhan, along with damages equivalent to $50.5 billion, legal fees and the right to seek additional compensation.
“This lawsuit is a stalling tactic and tells me that we have been on the right side of this issue all along,” Hanaway said.
The suit was filed after Missouri secured a default judgment earlier this year in a federal case alleging that China hoarded personal protective equipment during the early months of the pandemic. A judge ruled for Missouri after China declined to participate in the trial, awarding the state roughly $25 billion in damages.
Hanaway has since asked the U.S. State Department to notify China that Missouri intends to pursue assets with full or partial Chinese government ownership to satisfy the judgment. Her office is also assembling a list of Chinese properties that could be targeted, focusing on assets owned outright by the Chinese government or by companies in which it has a stake.
Legal scholars say those efforts face steep, and likely insurmountable, obstacles.
Chimène Keitner, director of the U.C. Davis Center for International Law & Policy, said government-owned property is generally protected by sovereign immunity — meaning Chinese government assets in the United States are shielded from seizure, just as U.S. government property is protected abroad.
China’s countersuit, she said, also appears unlikely to result in any recovery. But it carries legal and diplomatic implications that could further complicate Missouri’s case.
International law recognizes a doctrine known as “countermeasures,” Keitner said, which allows a country to take actions it otherwise could not as a way of pressuring another country to comply with international law.
If the U.S. government were to authorize Missouri’s efforts to seize Chinese assets, she said, it could expose American property in China to reciprocal action.
“So if Missouri violates China’s sovereign immunity,” Keitner said, “China could have a good argument for doing the same thing — not just against Missouri, but against the United States as a whole.”
William Dodge, a law professor at George Washington University who specializes in international law a, said neither lawsuit “has a prayer of being enforced.”
Even if Missouri were allowed to pursue assets, Dodge said, the scope would be narrow. Only property owned by the defendants named in the lawsuit — including the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China, several national agencies, provincial and local governments around Wuhan and the Wuhan Institute of Virology — could potentially be targeted.
And the state would still have to show that those specific entities were involved in hoarding personal protective equipment, he said.
Dodge, who has written extensively about Missouri’s lawsuit and a similar effort in Mississippi, agreed that China’s complaint further reduces the already slim likelihood that Missouri will be able to collect because it raises the risk of retaliation.
“China’s law has a reciprocity provision,” he said. “It basically says that if a foreign country gives China less immunity than Chinese law provides, China can respond by giving that foreign country less immunity. In other words: whatever the U.S. does to us, we can do to them.”
U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh initially dismissed Missouri’s lawsuit in 2022, ruling that the state could not sue China. An appeals court later allowed one claim to proceed — the allegation that China hoarded items such as respirator masks, medical gowns and gloves.
After Chinese officials failed to respond, Limbaugh accepted Missouri’s estimate of past and future damages of more than $8 billion, tripled it as federal law allows, and added 3.91% interest until the judgment is paid.
In an emailed statement last month, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China’s pandemic response involved “acts of national sovereignty” that are not subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
China will not pay, Liu said, and “will retaliate if necessary.”
The lawsuit filed in China accuses Missouri of “fabricating enormous disinformation” and spreading “stigmatizing and discriminating slanders” that it says have damaged China’s reputation.
Hanaway scoffed at China’s criticism.
“We stand undeterred in our mission to collect on our $24 billion judgment that was lawfully handed down in federal court,” she said.
Neither side’s claims are likely to result in any tangible recovery, Keitner said, leaving the dispute largely symbolic.
“Unfortunately, this all seems to be a lot of unhelpful political theater,” she said, “with no clear off-ramp for either side to save face.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent, part of the States Newsroom.
