I was born in totalitarian regime so my point of view on how things work is different. Nobody in the right mind in regime like PRC will show initiative like shoving you enemies Commanding officer. It just never happens. Those guys were ordered to do it. Consequences of doing something like that to you, your family etc without an order would be extreme.

Number of killed in the end is irrelevant, it is like US counting how many vietcong they bagged, utterly pointless. Small units, ncos and officers performed very well here.

I think it was what you call reconnaissance in force. Chinese wanted to see the quality of the opposing units, cause confusion and perhaps fear. They succeeded in first, others not so much. But they are persistent and judging from satellite photos have been building up force in the are for a while. Act 2 will come, sooner or later.

It is very consistent with the "fishermen" ramming opponents ships, killing Vietnamese sailors etc. This has been MO of the PRC for a very long time.

As for the rest, I disagree with your interpretation. It can even be argued that the Indians responded disproportionately to one guy being shoved by attacking everyone in the opposing party. Anyway we can't claim both that the Chinese murdered our troops and also that we killed more than twice of theirs than they did ours (but apparently, when we kill them, it is honourable?)