I have one of these in my area except it's for Vietnamese immigrants. And yep. It provides language classes, job help services, financial planning, childcare, housing services, help navigating the systems and services of my city, etc. Its completely normal and I know that it's one of the first stops for many immigrants and / or refugees as they get acquainted to a new place.
There's nothing secret about it. If anything it helps people assimilate into their neighborhood. Ridiculous that people think that somehow helping immigrants get comfortable with a new country is somehow a fucking evil plot.
These services are provided by police stations in China. Crackers thought if someone provided those services for chinese people outside of China, it must be the chinese police.
Yeah, I think it was last year, but my friend keeps bringing it up and I can't find anything about what the alleged "secret police stations" did except maybe tell people who had criminal charges pending in China that they had criminal charges pending in China.
I love shit like this. When it's something so banal that people aren't aware of its existence, so they perceive it as completely unprecedented. But yeah, as far as I'm aware it's just normal consular office stuff as you say.
From what I understand, Chinese consulates in the West have programs to try to convince ex-pats, namely well off ones, to repatriate. Basically, it’s a way to mitigate capital flight. Western media, of course, spin this as “China man has secret police arresting people in our country!”
Oh yeah, the thousand talents progam, which is very public knowledge. Crackers are mad that embargoes cannot be enfored on human beings that might, just like every CEO in any industry, just be persuaded back to china to spill the beans in exchange for a larger paycheck.
the lens through which I view all the China scare shit in Canada is that it's 100% just CSIS being jealous that they don't run the fuckin government as much as the CIA does down here, so they're stirring up shit to set up a power grab
there's this CSIS "foreign influence report" being circulated now about some members of government allegedly being assisted by or assisting foreign enemies (read China), and all CBC can report is who has read it and what they think. The Trudeau government to their credit seemed to recognize it as a naked made-up CSIS power grab and didn't immediately cave then name/expel everybody on the list, so now CSIS is trying to stir up shit that this means the Trudeau government is weak and unwilling to take decisive action to expel the communist infiltration. Trudeau for his part seems unwilling to just come out and accuse CSIS leadership of lying for political points.
I think Canada has just gotten weasely with their legal language to define consulates as police stations. Texas did the same thing by defining spying as "embassy record keeping while being Chinese."
My understanding is to assist Chinese citizens working abroad (and those eligible for Chinese citizenship) who couldn’t attend embassies and consulates they set up pop centres in areas with high Chinese diaspora populations, in restaurants, corner stores etc. There’s some connection between their civilian police and their immigration services that handle passports etc. Hence the conspiracy tin foil stuff.
But it’s basically just a country making things easier for its population even those overseas especially with covid19 etc.
There’s some connection between their civilian police and their immigration services that handle passports etc.
That's pretty common in socialist countries, in Poland for example all passport stuff were handled by militia before 1989, and afaik those militia passport departments employed mostly civilians.