The decision-making process in China is deliberative, and at the official level (Ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defence, State Security, etc.), it also pulls in the strategic community’s inputs and weighs the global responses before the matter goes up the political chain of command for a decision. As a result, China’s response time is longer. The Chinese, after full consideration, identified two major objectives: to punish India, and to rectify the damage that India had done to China’s image.
