I've seen it before. Chinese never admit when they are wrong, this is part of the 面子/face social concept.

Someone does something obviously in the wrong or flat out stupid but instead of apologizing and taking responsibility for it they will try to deflect blame by moving their responsibility onto someone else and foreigners are easy targets. One guy at my company made a mistake that resulted in relatively big financial losses, instead of acknowledging or (god forbid) apologizing for his mistake, he tried to blame another employee below him, fortunately the office manager know the true responsible and managed to save the man's face while ensuring that he would reimburse the losses.

If they get called out on it, instead of just walking away and salvaging whatever dignity they can from it, they make a massive scene which attracts onlookers. Now there is no way out and even more face is being lost so they scream more and make the situation even bigger. It's like the only way to save face is go nuclear which loses you even more face, so they start throwing things or attacking people to cover their embarrassment and just make it worse.

I saw a women get caught shoplifting once. The security guy or manager or whoever he was kept telling here to open her handbag and she wouldn't so he grabbed it off her and took out whatever it was she had stolen. She went apeshit, screaming at him like he'd violated her rights or something but he just told her to leave.

She kept screaming and abusing him and he was obviously just trying to avoid trouble, he kept saying just go - which set her off even more.

Now she was screaming about how he couldn't kick her out of the place and did he know who she was? Her brothers's wife's sister's friend's cousin's father's concubines's mother was... whoever and he would rue the day he decided to bully her and blah blah blah.... when I left people were trying to calm her down - and I suppose give her face,as if she was the one who was the victim - so she could go home and complain about the disgusting treatment she endured.

I really don't understand the face thing. It has do be the dumbest mindset ever created.