Contrary to the advice we received from a legal source at a British Chamber of Commerce legal briefing in Shanghai last Friday (and published here), it now seems that Z visa applications for China cannot be made in any third country. Not Macau. Not Singapore. Not Hong Kong.
As mentioned in the article, the application paperwork must be obtained
from the relevant authorities in China, but the Z visa application must
be made in the applicant's home or resident country, outside of China.
We have heard anecdotal evidence of a Z visa application being
successful by an overseas applicant last week in Bangkok, but it seems
that this may be either apocryphal or extremely fortuitous.