Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded Beijing to apologize for a provocative tweet depicting one his nation’s troops holding a bloody knife to an Afghan child’s throat. Instead, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s top spokeswoman shot back, asking whether Morrison lacks "a sense of right and wrong.”

The response was a hit in China, where spokeswoman Hua Chunying drew praise on social media for exuding the "style of a great power.” Her deputy, Zhao Lijian, was similarly cheered on for pinning the offending tweet to the top of his Twitter feed. China’s vast state media complex piled in, promoting stories about the ministry’s remarks while the official Xinhua News Agency dismissed Morrison’s demand as "utterly absurd” and the Global Times newspaper published an editorial describing Australia as "evil.”

The episode illustrates how China’s diplomatic rhetoric is increasingly driven by concerns at home, where President Xi Jinping’s promise of national rejuvenation and a torrent of overseas criticism led by the Trump administration are fanning nationalistic sentiments. China’s diplomats, who reportedly once received calcium tablets from citizens hoping they grow some backbone, are recasting themselves as one of the Communist Party’s most vocal defenders.