I'd think the culture of games and MMORPG had more influence.
I've seen multiple spins on the scenario you've described, in which some scenarios the exhaustive approach
is justified (the half-D world is on the verge of collapse, or about to fall to a corrupting force which will decay the resources, etc.);
is reasoned (if the protag leave the sustainable portion, their opponent or enemy will plunder the rest, basically 0-sum game);
is sustained (instead of harvesting everything, they transfer the resource to their own half-D, or if it's non-competitive, they do leave sustainable parts).
Then other genres of the wuxia and xianxia type where the protag is the leader of a faction, and have the faction resources (garden, mines, etc.).
I think you are thinking too deep into this. Reading a popular novel doesn't mean the readers agree with every action or idea the protag or the author take/presents, popular novel are more like fast food, maybe this fry is a bit too salty, maybe that fry is not salty enough, maybe the cola is lacking ice, etc.
Yeah it's true they don't always fully exhaust resources, but I wonder if the fact that such a large percentage of these worlds (comparatively to western fantasy worlds) are seen as 'well this is all gonna be gone soon anyway whether through natural effects or the actions of another bad actor so we may as well just abuse these resources anyway' doesn't reveal a slight bias compared to western attitudes.
But it's just a curiosity since as you say, it's not a representative sample and it's just a genre of fiction, not some real psychological / sociological study.
I've also heard the explanation that this particular behavior could be a reaction to recent history - in particular the famines that China went through in the 20th century. People still have through direct experience or through their recent parents of grandparents that experience of literally starving.
half-d? = half dimension / pocket dimension? don't know what half-d is.
It is an interesting phenomenon, but I'd say how different genres and how the Chinese novelist approach these genres has a greater effect on the outcome. Most times you reason from effect to cause to see why.
So typical Chinese fantasy/ high-level Wuxia/ Xianxia goes
protag need resources -> need lots with no strings -> a failing pocket dimension to exploit! -> maybe discovered through conflict / treasure map / etc.
Why though? Think of them as a one-time map in an RPG or something, where you access once for some material/etc. but can never revisit.
As for the behavior of that bunch of Chinese tourists, I would say that wasting was an issue in the recent generations (but won't be in the next generation), due to a number of factors such as the abundance of food on the market and in restaurant, hospitality (by providing more-than-can-eat), showoff (by providing extraordinary amount of food), corruption (government paid for, no need to hold back), etc.
However, the fight against corruption in recent years and recently passed laws that prohibit display in public and in video of wasting food would mean that the next generation growing up would have a different standard of what should be considered as waste.
Similarly, those growing up in the 70s-90s that had experience of a lack of food variety and amount, would either be very harsh on any waste of food, or would be overly lenient on wasting food.
As to the theory that this behavior came from memories of grandparents that experienced the famines, I'd say it's stretching it. There's too many variables that would affect the amount of influence, especially if the grandparents weren't around to educate about not wasting food. And if the grandparents didn't educate correctly, it could even cause a backlash.
I've seen multiple spins on the scenario you've described, in which some scenarios the exhaustive approach is justified (the half-D world is on the verge of collapse, or about to fall to a corrupting force which will decay the resources, etc.);
is reasoned (if the protag leave the sustainable portion, their opponent or enemy will plunder the rest, basically 0-sum game);
is sustained (instead of harvesting everything, they transfer the resource to their own half-D, or if it's non-competitive, they do leave sustainable parts).
Then other genres of the wuxia and xianxia type where the protag is the leader of a faction, and have the faction resources (garden, mines, etc.).
I think you are thinking too deep into this. Reading a popular novel doesn't mean the readers agree with every action or idea the protag or the author take/presents, popular novel are more like fast food, maybe this fry is a bit too salty, maybe that fry is not salty enough, maybe the cola is lacking ice, etc.