As with all border conflicts in South Asia, this is a very contentious topic. However, current scholarship looks to confirm a clear Chinese aggression in the war. The contrary position seems to be mostly confined to official Chinese positions, which I'll come back to in the end. So, let's see what factors point to China having started the Sino-Indian War of '62.

Bertil Lintner highlights that China had begun sending agents into Aksai Chin and surrounding areas already two years before the conflict. This was meant to gather information on India's military, the terrain and other features. These guide later played a crucial role in guiding PLA forces across this region during the war. This early date of starting operations means for Lintner that it was

at least a year before the Forward Policy was conceived, which makes it hard to argue that India's move in the area provoked China to attack. Furthermore, the date, 20 October 1962, for the final assault after years of preperations was carefully chosen because it would coincide with the Cuban missile crisis, which the Chinese knew about beforehand through their contacts with the leaders of the Soviet Union. [Because of this] the Chinese were convinced that the USA would be too preoccupied to pay much attention to a war in the distant Himalayas.

Contemporary accounts point to meticulous planning of military operations, so that already in summer of '62 prisoner-of war camps had been erected, interpreters for Indian languages had been moved to Lhasa, and a strong road built leading up to the McMahon Lahon. Moreover, tens of thousands of troops had been moved to the area in advance in order to acclimatize them to the altitudes.

Why would China have been convinced to start the war? Dai Chaowu has analysed documents of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives to paint a picture Sino-Indian diplomacy leading up the the conflict. While the two countries' relations had remained peaceful since Indian independence, a turning point came with China's anexation of Tibet, which had been an important trading partner for India.

In this light, Nehru's position on Tibet enraged Chinese leaders - Zhao Weiwen (an alaysits at the Chinese Ministry of State Security) described Nehru after '62 as possessing a "dark mentality", and already in '59 he mentions Nehru's "irresolute attitude". Zhao believed that Nehru would use "anti-China forces" in order to stoke unrest in Tibet. Mao expressed similar sentiments as early as '59, stating that India had to be dealt with at the right moment. With the Tibetan Rebellion of 1960 Indian bussinespeople suffered heavy losses, and Delhi continued to protest this which clearly did not go down well with Beijing. Before this background, the war can also be seen as having elements of a pre-emptive strike - at least following Chinese officials' statements.

For Dai Chaowu, relations between the two states went on to deteriorate leading up the war. In addition to the developments mentioned abovem this had much to do with Nehru's resistance to settling the existing border issues between China and India - including in a Boundary Committee founded in May '58. A summit meeting in April 1960

was doomed to failure when Nehru in the opening session of April 20 stressed that 'this frontier has been considered to be a firm one' and the 'question of the demarcation of the entire frontier does not arise'.

Having supposedly exhausted diplomatic means, China by '62 clearly prepared for war, with India intesifying its Forward Policy in the eastern sector. On the following occasions for negotiations, each time India was set on China's withdrawal from the areas under dispute in Aksai Chain as a condition. The Chinese Communist Party leadership considered this unacceptable and saw war as an inevitability, launching the order to attack on 8 October of '62. As I sketched above, the whole operation had been prepared meticulously at least for two years prior.

While the Sino-Indian war led to an open split between the two countries (influencing the later war in Kashmir in the early 80sEdit: This war was between India and Pakistan, but influenced India's position indirectly as it also took place in extreme heights of the Himalaya), this also led to Pakistan allying more closely with China in its wake.

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For your question on positions on the war in Chinese historiography, I'll quote once more from Dai Chaowu's article which makes them quite clear:

This 'long forgotten war' has lately received much scholarly attention in China. Recent literatur has focused on the interaction between Mao's domestic power struggle, national security concerns and illusions of grandeur. Chinese researchers in general concluded that the grounds of the war lay in both India's refusal to negotiate about the disputet boundary line.

This position does not account for Chinese seeking a military solution to the conflict, and to its earlier preparations mentioned above.

This analysis can be interestingly paralleled with Beijing's position immediately following the war:

Beijing believed the boundary dispute was provoked by India, a 'reactionary nationalist state'. Furthermore, the CCP leaders asserted, Nehru was playing the border card to tighten his control over rightist policial groups in India and over the Congress Pary, and to suppress leftist groups. In doing so, he also sought economic and military aid from bothe Washington and Moscow.

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Sources:

• Bertil Lintner, "China’s India War: Collision Course on the Roof of the World"

• Dai Chaowu, "From 'Hindi-Chini Chai-Bhai' to 'international class struggle' against Nehru. China's India policy and the frontier dipute, 1950-62, in: The Sino-Indian War of 1962: New perspectives, ed. by Amit R. Das Gupta, Lorenz M. Lüthi

Edit: Added context and sources