When they face odds of being in the defeatist camp, they turn totally subservient and bow to reality. When they realise they have some power which may not even be great, they turn totally gleeful and seek to exercise them behaving like fools. Emotions can get the better of them in their expressions of greed.
The Chinese have a saying to describe what you just said: 见高就拜,见低就踩 (when you see someone higher, you bow in obeisance; when you see someone lower, you step on him)
Yes, more typical of Indian Indians. They drive a harder bargain too. Some of my Indian friends started ventures in Kerala and Chennai only to be scammed and swore never to do business there again.
You see this hard-nosed shrewdness in China, too. It's the large dense population, limited welfare, and huge socio-economic imbalances that bring these 'survivalist' instincts to the fore.