China has organized more than 100 consular “pop-up” events in Canada since 2015, which are framed as providing consular services to the Chinese diaspora community, but serve to advance influence operations, surveillance, and cognitive warfare, a new report says.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa, in addition to the consulates in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary, have organized at least 105 consular pop-ups across 11 provinces and 22 cities in Canada since 2015, says the report released Dec. 2 by the Jamestown Foundation.
Pop-up events are held at locations like hotel conference rooms, Chinese cultural centres, university classrooms, and clubhouses. The events can be viewed as “gray zone” activities, the report says, noting they “exploit an ambiguity in international law” and it remains unclear whether pop-up style consular service events that occur in non-designated diplomatic facilities are legal….