Barely registered? Are you sure? I wouldn't call Hua chun Ying press conference in response to NZ and others insignificant.
Agree with you that it does make them look bad in the eyes of the world. But the eyes of the world doesn't matter to the west at all.
What do those words and support for Australia actually mean? It barely registers from an information, propaganda or economic point of view.
And from the Chinese point of view, it's already written off the USA, Australia and some of the West.
So what matters is the rest of the world.
From the Chinese point of view, the bigger and more high profile this argument gets, the better, because Australia (and its supporters) look bad.