Your words of caution are well founded, you should tell us more about the situations that you've come across when a laowai was confronted. However pissing someone who is of supposed importance off in china and then having them make life tough for you doesn't give you the incentive to back down, but to fight back in whatever way you can. I mean how Chinese do you really want to be ? Justice is on your side, not on theirs. The more they abuse their power, the more they justify their country and culture's status in this world.