I agree with the OP - the practise is daft. Our office is so cold (all year, but worst in winter when the aircon runs AND it's cold outside) that I keep a heater in my office, which I use to stay warm. This is COMPLETE LUNACY and not environmentally friendly at all, but otherwise my hands get so cold I cannot type so I cannot work.
There is no reason at all to run the AIRCON to keep the air from getting stale ... if you need air movement, you can run just the fan function, or perhaps the fan + dehumidify function, there is NO NEED to add the "cooling" part to move air. This is just crap.
Besides, it's not this bad in many other Asian countries - Malaysia, for example, uses plenty of aircon and needs it, but the temperatures are not set so low so that it's a comfortable cooling rather than a frigid cooling.
I had exactly the same experience on a bus last year, in winter. There was a traffic jam and the bus ride was taking longer than usual and the whole bus was shivering. Eventually someone (chinese) got up and asked the driver for some heating. Oh it was bliss! Cannot believe it took about 45 minutes of shivering before it happened though!