They were too slow. China always said they only wanted to ban ICOs and exchanges until they found a better solution for protecting its users. (If you believe this or not is another thing, but it doesn't matter in this case) They had people from the crypto community in der commitee (like the founder team of NEO), but obviously they did not manage to find a better solution.
Why are they banning the exchanges without banning the mining farms?
And why are they just banning it not declaring it as illegal, are they just trying
to hoard as much number of bitcoin as possible and will eventually remove the
ban on their exchanges in the future?