US mulls stripping China of sovereign immunity

Washington: Officials in the United States, across multiple government agencies, are expected to meet on Thursday (local times) to chalk out a strategy for seeking retaliatory measures against China for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Washington Post reported citing officials.

This comes against the background of US President Donald Trump's continuous attack against China, blaming it for withholding information about the virus and allowing it to spread around the world. According to the Washington Post, US officials are discussing the possibility of stripping China of its "sovereign immunity," aiming to enable the US government or victims to sue China for damages. George Sorial, who formerly served as a top executive at the Trump Organisation and is involved in a class-action lawsuit against China, told The Washington Post he and senior White House officials have discussed limiting China's sovereign immunity.

Trump has also indicated that he is thinking about "levying extreme penalties" on China.When asked about it on Thursday, Trump said: "You start playing those games and that's tough." He said cancelling interest payments to China could undermine the "sanctity of the dollar," but he added that there were other ways to levy extreme penalties on China, such as raising USD 1 trillion by imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. Coronavirus which first emerged in China has so far has infected more than 3.2 million people and killed at least 233,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The US has emerged as the worst-hit country in the world with 1 million Covid-19 cases and at least 63,000 deaths. Administration officials have signalled that many of the discussions are preliminary and that little formal work has begun on turning these initial ideas into reality. Other officials have warned Trump against the push to punish China, saying the country is sending supplies to help the American response. "Now is just not the right time," one senior administration official involved in the talks said. "There will be a time to do it.