And there appears to be little Australian workplace authorities can do to ensure no one is injured or killed on the site.

Under the deal, the site is covered by diplomatic status - even though the embassy is not complete - making the construction site effectively Chinese soil.

That status means that Australian authorities have no jurisdiction to assist anyone injured or killed on the construction site. Nor can they enforce local safety standards.

Asked whether workplace protections were being enforced, and how they were being enforced, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said simply that, ''the Chinese embassy has committed to comply with ACT building, employment and safety standards''.

DFAT says all workers are Chinese citizens, who have been granted diplomatic visas to travel to Australia and work on the project. China has forbidden Australians from working on the site.

''The reciprocal arrangement with China was concluded to ensure that both sides could proceed with construction on secure chancery accommodation under appropriate conditions,'' the DFAT spokesman said.

''Planned works to extend the Australian embassy chancery [in Beijing] have yet to commence.'' He did not respond to questions about what would happen on the site in the event of the injury or death of a Chinese worker on diplomatic status, or whether the Chinese labourers were working under Chinese laws and pay rates.

The Chinese embassy did not respond to requests for interview.

DFAT briefed the ACT's industrial relations minister, Chris Bourke, on the situation after the ACT Greens pressed him on the issue.

In a written statement lodged in the ACT Legislative Assembly, Dr Bourke said most embassies and high commissions were constructed before being afforded diplomatic status.

''This is not the case for the Chinese embassy due to an agreement reached between the Australian Government and People's Republic of China for this specific project,'' Dr Bourke wrote. ''DFAT advice is this is a unique situation and unlikely to recur.''

ACT WorkSafety commissioner Mark McCabe said as it stood, it would be impossible to independently verify if a worker had been injured or killed on the site.

The ACT secretary of the CFMEU, Dean Hall, said ''Meccano set'' style scaffolding had been erected on site, with workers walking over single scaffold planks affixed to the scaffolding three storeys high.

''Nowhere in Australia, on any work site, would that be acceptable,'' Mr Hall said. ''There is a real and present threat of injury.''

In 1995, Australia was rocked by revelations that Australia and the United States had bugged the previous Chinese embassy in Canberra when it was being built in the early 1980s, laying fibre-optic cables in the walls.

It also emerged the governments had acquired warrants to listen to the recordings obtained by the spying mission, an operation that lasted until the surveillance was made public.

It is not the first time the security-conscious communist power has done a deal to import its own workers to build an embassy.

In 2006, the US and China imported their own workers and materials for new embassies being built in Washington and Beijing, with US State Department spokesman Kendal Smith saying the two countries had brought in their own workers to avoid security problems.