Based on Yoshihisa Komori’s Sankei Shimbun essay, this article examines the growing American movement to demand compensation from the Chinese government for the damage caused by the Wuhan coronavirus. It highlights actions in the U.S. Congress, proposals by Republican lawmakers, class-action lawsuits by small and medium-sized businesses in Florida, Texas, Nevada and other states, and opinion polls showing that many Americans hold the Chinese government responsible for the pandemic.

April 14, 2020
In states such as Florida, Texas, and Nevada, local small and medium-sized businesses have already filed large-scale class-action lawsuits demanding that the Chinese government compensate them for the damage caused by the coronavirus.
The following is from an essay by Yoshihisa Komori, published in today’s Sankei Shimbun under the title, “Demanding Compensation from China Becomes an American Trend.”
Yoshihisa Komori is one of the world’s leading active journalists.
The following article by him is an inconvenient truth for Asahi Shimbun and the like, and they will probably not report it at all.
In the United States, as the spread of the new coronavirus infection has widened, a movement has become conspicuous to pursue China for its original responsibility and to demand that the Chinese government pay a huge amount in damages.
The most pointed and clear movement is taking place in the United States Congress.
In late March, resolutions were submitted to both houses of Congress specifically demanding compensation from the Chinese government.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican, Representative Elise Stefanik, also Republican, and about ten other lawmakers introduced resolutions of the same content simultaneously in both houses.
The gist was as follows.
The Chinese government’s deliberate and systematic cover-up of the spread and lethality of the coronavirus caused the deaths of a great many people, including American citizens.
The United States Congress demands that the Chinese government assume legal responsibility for the damage, losses, and destruction that its operation caused throughout the world, and pay compensation.
The United States Congress proposes to the international community the creation of a legal mechanism by which each nation can quantitatively and monetarily measure the damage it suffered from China’s actions and receive compensation from the Chinese government.
The United States Congress has now come to confront the Chinese government with claims this severe.
In reality, however, many obstacles can be expected in the act of attributing responsibility for a viral infection to a specific sovereign state and obtaining compensation from that state.
In connection with that point, Representative Jim Banks, Republican, one of the signatories of the resolution, proposed specific methods for obtaining compensation from China.
The first was to collect it from part of the U.S. government bonds already held by the Chinese government.
The second was for the U.S. government, for the purpose of this compensation claim, to impose special tariffs on imports from China and build up a “Coronavirus Victims Compensation Fund.”
In the United States Congress, arguments of this kind pursuing China’s responsibility have rapidly gained momentum among Republican lawmakers close to the Trump administration.
In early April, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, an influential figure in the Senate, issued a statement calling for the Chinese government to pay compensation for the damage caused by the coronavirus in the United States.
He said, “This is the third time that China has harmed foreign countries with a virus that originated in its own country. It was the Chinese government’s cover-up and dissemination of false information that created the global infection.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn, also a Republican, presented to Congress a proposal attributing “responsibility for the global epidemic crisis originating in Wuhan” to the Chinese government, and requiring China to give up the major portion of the roughly one trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds it holds.
Behind these movements in Congress is the growing condemnation of China among the American public.
In states such as Florida, Texas, and Nevada, local small and medium-sized businesses have already filed large-scale class-action lawsuits demanding that the Chinese government compensate them for the damage caused by the coronavirus.
In a nationwide survey conducted in early April by the Harris Poll, 77 percent of respondents said that the Chinese government was responsible for the great coronavirus outbreak, and 54 percent said that the Chinese government should pay compensation for the damage it caused to the United States.
Looking at this trend, it is highly likely that, in the United States from now on, the movement to demand compensation from the Chinese government will become an important issue even in national politics.
Guest Correspondent in Washington.