Unexpected token '<' in json files with html values

[ssuess]

Getting this error:

 [vite] Internal server error: Unexpected token '<'.
  Plugin: vite-plugin-vue-i18

only in files which have html in the values (ie: {"en-GB":{"description":"<p><em>This</em> shows...</p>"}}). Never had this problem when using webpack. Any ideas?

[ssuess]

This is quite intermittent. When I change the included file while dev is running, it reloads and works sometimes, but when I restart my dev environment it fails always, unless there is no html in the string.

[ssuess]

and if I put a word after the first html tag (ie {"en-GB":{"description":"<p>THIS shows...</p>"}} the resulting error is:
[plugin:vite-plugin-vue-i18n] Unexpected identifier 'THIS'.

[ssuess]

it seems if I format my string with a million escapes, it will work:
{"en-GB":{"description":"\<\p\>\<\em\>THIS\<\/em\> is a paragraph.\<\/p\>"}}
but I really don't relish having to do this in every file, is there some setting which will automatically ignore/escape html tags?

[ssuess]

Still can't make headway with this, anyone? Guess I will report it as a bug?