The reason I brought it up:
My understanding is that there is no way we can enter a foreign embassy uninvited and certainly no way we can search their records.
However in the event there is war, all restrictions are off. We do what we need to do.
I am not trying to predict what the Chinese will do, only raising the question....why?
My understanding is you are correct that we cannot enter, however I would suspect it started as a 911 call of a fire outside the consulate by some random passerby watch got the response going to the scene and only then did they discover what was going on.
We do what we need to do with the understanding that there are American consulates in China where Americans work.
"Do unto others..." has a whole different meaning when we realize that our own are in a similar boat. And once we start removing "restrictions", then we understand that they may remove "restrictions" as well.
Do an air drop of the pink fire retardant?!?!