the times | Tuesday May 24 2022 31Juan Carlos meets son for
first time in two years
Page 32if China invades
ordered to take Covid test every two days
one of the first Chinese provinces to
“routinise” tests every two days. The
local authorities said that all urban
districts must set up enough testing
stations to allow anyone to access one
within 15 minutes on foot.
Samples will be collected every hour
for laboratory analysis and the results
will be uploaded within six hours to a
centralised anti-pandemic manage-
ment platform. Anyone who fails to
comply with the 48-hour rule will lose
their green health code, which is re-
quired to access most venues and public
transport.
The rules will come into effect in the
provincial capital of Zhengzhou, which
has a population of 13 million, in the
next week. Other cities in the province
have been ordered to set up a “workingmechanism” by the end of next month.
“This measure is conducive to boosting
the sensitivity of the monitoring and
warning system for the pandemic and it
can uncover potential risks sooner,”
Daxiang News, a local website, said.
The Chinese government demanded
this month that all big cities provide
testing stations for easy public access.
Other provincial capitals, such as Shiji-
azhuang in the northern province of
Hebei, have introduced mandatory
tests once a week.
Analysts have warned, however, that
frequent mass testing will exact a heavy
cost on an already faltering economy.
China reported more than 800 new
infections on Sunday, nearly 560 of
those in Shanghai, which is gradually
lifting a city-wide lockdown. More thanhalf of Beijing’s population of 21 million
have been ordered to work from home.
Several Chinese cities, including
Beijing, already require a negative re-
sult from a test taken in the previous
48 hours to go to work or enter public
places such as supermarkets, shopping
malls, clinics and parks.
Most airports and train stations also
demand a negative result from a PCR
test taken within the previous 48 hours
for departure. Other cities may require
a negative result from the past 72 hours.
Tests are in such a high demand in
China that one provider recently
launched in Beijing was found to have
tested only a small portion of all sam-
ples collected, raising questions over
such services’ qualifications and the
accuracy of their results.Pence’s backing for
Trump rival signals
White House run
The former US vice-president Mike
Pence made a late intervention in
Georgia’s Republican primary election
yesterday, breaking with Donald
Trump to back a rival candidate as the
two men each consider running for the
White House in 2024.
Pence was expected to appear at a
rally in support of Brian Kemp, Geor-
gia’s governor, who faces a challenge
from David Perdue, a former senator
who has Trump’s backing.
With Kemp holding a commanding
lead on the eve of polling today, the race
is set to be Trump’s biggest defeat of the
primary season, heading into crucial
midterm elections in November.
Pence and Trump are understood
not to have spoken for a year, since the
former refused to intervene and block
certification of Joe Biden’s election vic-
tory in Congress on January 6 last year.
That triggered the riot in which Presi-
dent Trump’s supporters stormed the
Capitol building, some of them chant-
ing: “Hang Mike Pence.”
Georgia marks the most explicit
break between the pair. Trump issued a
statement at the weekend accusing his
former vice-president of being “desper-
ate to chase his lost relevance”.
Trump has remained obsessed with
Georgia since his narrow defeat in
the state by Biden at the 2020 presi-
dential election. He was recorded
alternately pleading and threaten-
ing Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s
Republican secretary of
state, to “find 11,780 votes”
and swing the state his way.
The former president
then pressed Kemp to in-
tervene and block Bid-
en’s victory. To Trump’sfury, both publicly refused, and the
former president has turned the pri-
mary race into a vendetta to avenge
what he regards as their disloyalty.
Trump has backed rival Republicans
against both men in the ballot, which
decides who goes forward to face Dem-
ocratic candidates in November.
Trump’s endorsed candidates across
various states, all repeating his claim
that the 2020 election was stolen, have
won almost all their primary races so
far. Georgia has exposed some limita-
tions to his grip on the Republican
Party, however. Kemp still holds a dou-
ble-digit lead over Perdue in every poll,
despite Trump making several appear-
ances on the campaign trail and lam-
basting the governor through the press
as a “turncoat” and “coward.”
Pence is the most senior Republican
to enter the Georgia race in support of
Kemp, and is thought to harbour ambi-
tions for the presidential nomination in- He has pointedly refused to rule
out a run for the White House. Trump
has broadly hinted that he will run.
Trump dismissed his former ally’s in-
tervention in Georgia. “Mike Pence was
set to lose a governor’s race in 2016
before he was plucked up and his polit-
ical career was salvaged,” Trump’s
spokesman told The New York Times.
“Now, desperate to chase his lost rele-
vance, Pence is parachuting
into races, hoping someone is
paying attention.”
Pence responded in Februa-
ry to Trump’s claims that he
could have overturned the
2020 result but “didn’t
exercise that power”.
Pence told a conservative
conference: “President
Trump is wrong. I had no
right to overturn the elect-
ion. The presidency be-
longs to the American
people, and the Amer-
ican people alone.”
Hugh Tomlinson WashingtonZUMAPRESS.COM/MEGAminister, against Chinese aggression after the pair met in Tokyo yesterday. Biden also plans a new Pacific trade agreement
Race to stay in motel room
where fugitive couple hid
Motel 41 is a drab establishment in Indi-
ana with some rather spotty reviews on
hotel sites. But in recent weeks it has at-
tracted scores of patrons, all
hoping to stay in room 150.
It was where an escaped
prisoner from Alabama
and his paramour, a pris-
on officer, stayed while
on the run. At least 70
people are now on a
waiting list to stay there, a
clerk told the local televi-
sion station WAAY 31.
“Hot place to visit!” wrote a
reviewer on Trip.com, giving it
five stars, a great improvement on thereview by a visitor in 2020 who com-
plained of mould on the walls.
Casey White, 38, serving 75 years for
violent offences and awaiting trial for
murder, left Lauderdale County Jail on
April 29, in the custody of Vicky
White, 56, assistant director
of corrections, who said
she was escorting him to
court. Instead, the two
drove north, switching
cars twice. The second
car was spotted at Motel
41, where they stayed
from May 3 to May 9.
Vicky White is believed
to have taken her own life as
police closed in, while Casey
White surrendered. He said they had
chosen the motel as “a place to hide out
and figure out the next place to travel,”
Sheriff Dave Wedding told CNN.Will Pavia New YorkChina. Its goal was the liberalisation of
trade and the opening up of long-pro-
tected industries in some of the most dy-
namic economies in the world. If it had
been fully implemented, it would have
brought internet freedom to communist
Vietnam and imposed labour standards
on Malaysia, a country notoriously tol-
erant of the trafficking of migrant work-
ers. However, it caused anxiety in Con-gress over a perceived threat to US jobs.
President Trump cancelled it.
Ipef is intended to promote labour
standards, supply chain resilience, clean
energy and anti-corruption measures.
Gina Raimondo, Biden’s commerce sec-
retary, called it “the most significant
international economic engagement
that the United States has ever had in
this region”. But it will not reduce tradetariffs or access to US markets, reducing
the incentive for other countries to im-
prove their trade practices.
Today Biden and Kishida will join the
leaders of India and Australia for a
meeting of the Quad, a security group-
ing intended as a counterbalance to
Chinese military power.
China would be reckless to write off
Biden’s warnings, leading article, page 29ns, all
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