The residency requirement has existed (in an official sense) for as long as I've been getting visas, but its implementation varies widely between missions (i.e. many don't care at all). This is why I advised you to reach out to individual consulates directly. You can also clarify 10-year validity in the same emails.

China is hardly unique with the residency thing, by the way.

Residency was never a wide-spread requirement for Chinese visas. It purportedly became a thing during Covid-19, but even then it was more of a requirement for the Health Code which you need for boarding rather than the visa itself. Post-Covid there are no wide-spread requirements on residency for Chinese visa applications.

I've never seen it written on any visa applications (websites, yes, though), but in the US, for example, each consulate is only supposed to process visa applications for residents within its own jurisdiction. I recall being initially told "no" at the Los Angeles consulate in 1998 because I didn't have a SoCal address at the time; a tiny amount of pleading was sufficient to overcome this obstacle. New York also used to have a reputation for being somewhat anal. Agencies never seemed to need to comply with the rule.

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That's a restriction on citizens applying from their own country. Yes they've always had consular jurisdictions, which applies to citizens and long-term residents (e.g., green card holders or work visa holders). But I thought we were discussing restrictions on tourists and others on short-stay visas applying for a Chinese visa.

It's basically the same thing afik; consulates have discretion about whether to accept applications from non residents and to set rules for exceptions. In late 2019, our company needed to bring over an American contractor when he was in the Philippines and the Chinese mission there threw up all sorts of hurdles over a three-day period before issuing him a visa. In hindsight, we should have just asked him to stop by HK in order to get the visa, but he had assured us that he'd have no problems doing the drill in Manila.

What sort of hurdles? I've never heard of anyone having trouble with getting a tourist visa in Manila (while being there on a tourist visa). Of course if it's a Z visa then things might be different.

Just demonstrating why it wasn't practical for him to apply in his home country, include information about his accommodations/purpose in the Philippines, and give them time to correspond with the US. The visa type was M and we had issued a chopped invitation letter, which they were fine with. It certainly wasn't the end of the world, and I wasn't seriously worried about him not being permitted to apply, but if he had bothered to reach out to them beforehand, we would have chosen a different path.

ETA: I forgot to mention that a potential downside to applying in an overly bureaucratic consulate/visa center is ending up with a crappy visa.

Was talking with my friends who are mainland Chinese but are living in Germany.

How would the Entry-Exit permit work for PRC passport holders who reside outside the mainland ? Wouldn't it theoretically be easier, since they don't need to get permission from mainland China to leave the mainland => Taiwan ?

Getting the Entry-exit permit (入台證) is easy if you live outside China. But you need permission from mainland China to fly mainland -> Taiwan regardless of where you live which is called 大通證 and very hard to get. You can see more details here https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chin...x-china-4.html

(This should be in the Taiwan transit thread, but since the topic was brought up here...)

At least for Chinese citizens living in China, it's not hard to get a 大通證. The hard thing to get is the Entry-exit permit (入台證), the permit to enter Taiwan, issued by Taiwan. Right now Taiwan is only allowing certain categories of travelers (including Chinese citizens residing outside of China). Once you have the document issued by Taiwan, you just go to an entry-exit bureau run by the PSB and get the 大通證 + endorsement. If one is not flying to Taiwan directly from China, then no 大通證 is required. But as I mentioned in the other thread, Chinese citizens may get a lecture from immigration if they fly from Taiwan to China using only their PRC passport.

I've never seen a visa that asks for proof of residency. Because in the past you put your address.. but people are saying the U.S consulates for China ask specifically for proof of residency. My state doesn't update the address on driver's licenses anymore.. and I'm a digital nomad so no permanent address anyways. I wonder if I'm going to run into problems. That was the reason why I was wondering whether I could just use a friend's address or random address in SoCal or Arizona so I could get the visa at the L.A consulate instead of S.F one.

The most likely and easiest consulate for me to apply to would be the Chinese consulate in Singapore.. I e-mailed them but they just wrote back copy and paste but didn't answer my question about whether 10 year, 90 day visa is available to U.S tourists in Singapore.. so I wonder if any other U.S passport holders here have any luck in Singapore? :)

As long as you don't pester them too much, I don't think there is much (if any) downside in replying with the same question again and/or calling them (I prefer email/WeChat though because you get a record of any arrangements they make for you).

Incidentally, back when I was using visas to enter China, I often found that 90 or 120 days/entry was hard to swing with 10 year validity (even in DC, a friendly consulate), but if I accepted 2 year validity, I could get 120 days/stay.

Chinese consulates in the US are pretty stingy. Even 10-year Q2 visas only get 120 days/entry. Chinese consulates in other countries usually give 180 days/entry for Q2s.