To China's credit, its officials actually speak up and advocate for their interests. Compare that to the US Embassy, which does little but sit back and absorb abuse and mostly goes quiet whenever their citizens are dumped on. I'll never forget the incident four years or so ago, when a Chinese tourist was slapped by Thai police at, I think, the airport. It resulted in Thai officials almost crawling with apologies and special Thai honor guards meeting tourist flights from China.
Check in on the US Embassy's twitter feed some time. The ambassador seems to spend most of his time visiting tourist sites and talking about the great Thai/US partnership. (It must come with the job description, I guess, because I saw Americans in China complaining about the US ambassador there doing the same thing and sweeping everything else under the rug.)