Unfortunately this type of behaviour is very common with mainland Chinese passengers. We have had similar incidences here at CX as well as KA and I know mainland Chinese carriers deal with this type of BS all the time. You are dealing with pax that only a very short time ago would never have been able to leave China let alone travel by air. They are generally only allowed to travel with approved tour groups where I believe these scams are hatched. I wouldn’t be surprised if the tour group leader in a lot of these cases was the instigator.
It is unacceptable that crew have to face life threatening situations like this but unless considerable diplomatic pressure is placed on China by various governments around the world to beef up security at Chinese airports and impose serious penalties on the perpetrators, the situation won’t change.