A Chinese court has begun proceedings in a US$53.5 billion defamation case brought by authorities and research institutions against the US state of Missouri over allegations concerning its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court said in a notice on Monday that it had held a hearing on Friday and that legal proceedings were continuing. The case was jointly filed on April 30, 2025, by the Wuhan municipal government in Hubei province, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its subordinate Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The defendants initially included Missouri and two former state attorneys general, Eric Schmitt and Andrew Bailey. In December 2025, the plaintiffs added Missouri’s current attorney general, Catherine Hanaway, as a co-defendant. Hanaway acknowledged receiving the court documents that month, according to an earlier report by the South China Morning Post.
The Chinese plaintiffs allege that the defendants “orchestrated, promoted and executed malicious and abusive litigation in the US, fabricated and disseminated false information and issued stigmatising and discriminatory remarks”. They contend that these actions seriously violated their rights to reputation and caused substantial financial losses.
Court documents show that the Chinese parties are seeking 356.437 billion yuan, equivalent to approximately US$53.5 billion, in compensation. They are also demanding public apologies from the defendants across several international media platforms, including The New York Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and YouTube, as well as Chinese state media outlets People’s Daily and Xinhua.
The proceedings are part of a series of legal disputes between China and the United States arising from accusations over the origins and handling of the pandemic.
In 2020, Schmitt, then Missouri’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government, alleging that mainland authorities had concealed the risks of human-to-human transmission, silenced whistle-blowers and failed to contain the initial outbreak, allowing the virus to spread internationally.
At the time, Schmitt said the action sought “recovery for the enormous loss of life, human suffering and economic turmoil experienced by all Missourians from the Covid-19 pandemic that has disrupted the entire world”.
That lawsuit also named China’s National Health Commission, the Wuhan municipal government and the Wuhan Institute of Virology as defendants. The institute became a focus of allegations that the coronavirus may have originated from a laboratory leak, claims that became part of wider disputes over the pandemic’s origins.
During the early stages of the outbreak, the WIV said it had been seriously affected by conspiracy theories circulating online, including allegations that the virus had been artificially created and leaked from its laboratory. It also rejected claims that the institute had been taken over by the military, that a researcher had died from the leaked virus, or that one of its students had been the first infected person.
The legal dispute has also produced a significant ruling in the United States. In March 2026, a US federal judge ruled that the Chinese government was responsible for concealing the early stages of the Covid-19 outbreak and stockpiling protective equipment. The court entered a default judgment of US$24.5 billion in favour of Missouri.
The Wuhan proceedings are continuing, with the Chinese plaintiffs maintaining their demand for compensation and public apologies from Missouri and the named officials.
