Cashed-up Chinese tourists' reputation for uncouth and embarrassing behaviour has so incensed China's leaders that the government has issued a stern warning to citizens travelling to foreign locales for this week's Chinese New Year.

Chinese holidaymakers heading overseas are being warned that any bad behaviour will be swiftly punished with a public shaming on their return.

The harsh new measures follow a spate of international incidents involving Chinese mainlanders that have become viral sensations.

This includes excruciating video clips of Chinese tourists defecating on public streets, hurling abuse at shop keepers, and getting into fights from Hong Kong to Germany.

One Chinese teenager recently outraged an entire nation when he scratched his name into a 3,500 year old temple in Egypt.

And Parisians could barely believe their eyes when a group of Chinese tourists decided to wash their feet - en masse - at the Louvre.

China's new-found prosperity has unleashed a staggering 85 million first-time Chinese tourists around the world in the past few years.

But as tourist operators scramble for a piece of the Chinese market, Wanning Sun, a media professor at the University of Technology Sydney, says the alarming behaviour of the few is causing serious embarrassment for the Middle Kingdom.

"The Chinese government has reason to be concerned about this," Professor Sun said.

"The government has spent lots and lots of money aiming to get international, particularly Westerners, to like China, to have a better image of China."

Professor Sun, who grew up in mainland China, says while the bad behaviour has been wildly exaggerated by social media, it is almost entirely due to one particular group of tourists - China's crass new rich or "boa fah hu".

This group, she says, has the same obnoxious manners as their Australian equivalent, the "boganaire".

"Its a particular class of consumer," Professor Sun explained.

"Someone who got rich overnight, by whatever means.

"They haven't necessarily had the good education, their taste is vulgar and they think because they have money wherever they go people should defer to them.

"They carry that sort of uncouth behaviour with them overseas to the great embarrassment of the Chinese government as well as the very well educated and civilised Chinese people."

China's national tourism body this week launched a comprehensive new guide to would-be globe trotters on how to behave civilly in foreign countries.

Handy tips include no finger-clicking at German waiters. Nose-picking or peeing in swimming pools is a no-no anywhere.

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Limp handshakes and swearing or shouting at people are also frowned upon.

And leaving footprints on toilet seats is beyond the pale.

With tourist operators around Asia steeling themselves for the huge surge of Chinese visitors celebrating the New Year, Thailand's government this week took the unprecedented step of handing out a local etiquette guide in Mandarin.

But that, says Professor Sun, may be a risky strategy.

She says insulting all Chinese tourists for the behaviour of a few reflects the huge ambivalence towards China's new found spending power in the world.

And after all, China is just following the well worn path of other newly flush nations who all have to make those first baby steps into the often bewildering world of global tourism.

"If you look at other countries like Taiwan in the 60s and 70s or South Korea or even Japan a couple of decades ago you had similar kinds of complaints and prejudice and stereotypes," Professor Sun said.

"Now is the turn of the Chinese tourists. They are just the new kids on the block."