That statement was reactionary. It came after both events and when shit was already going down.

Their best option at this point might be to just claim the ban. Release a statement saying that external influence is not allowed and will result in the removal of DPC (for future insurance) and then set the rule that racist comments will result in a ban from 1 next valve event.

If they detailed beforehand as a rule that the team must fine them, and all other incidents of racism were treated in this one manner then there would be much less grounds for the Chinese to call for a ban / get their local govt involved and valve could shut them down with some concrete precedents to back them up.

The key thing here is that TNC were NOT going to punish kuku until the chinese community got angry. And even then they initially tried to cover it up.