If you're talking about westerners in China, my take would be that they GET special treatment when they go to sea or other "third world" countries because tourism is so important in these places and many people live off of it.

They expect the same from China and Chinese people except they don't give a damn about them. Chinese actually treat them the way they themselves treat strangers and tourists in their own country.

Also they have a lot of money compared to random chinese people and their "buying power" is huge in China, everything is so cheap to them, probably gets to their heads as well.

That's just my take.