Xu Qinxian: A General Defied Tiananmen Orders, 6-Hour Secret Trial Leaked!

On November 24, 2025, a surprising document appeared on Chinese social media. A full video recording of the secret military court trial held by the Chinese Military Tribunal. The video, nearly 6 hours long and filmed on March 17, 1990, contains highly shocking material. The central figure of the trial is General Xu Qinxin, known as the general who defied orders The entire proceeding revolves around his refusal to carry out the order to suppress the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, revealing historical details long hidden from the public. So who exactly is Xu Qinxin? And what does this video truly expose? Let's delve into it in today's program. We've heard many accounts of the June 4 incident, but most come from student leaders or participants in the movement. Rarely from declassified materials originating within the Chinese Communist Party itself. But on November 24, Wu Renhua, a well-known scholar of the Tiananmen protests who studied at Peking University and was conducting research at the China University of Political Science and Law when the events occurred, posted the Military Tribunal video on social media. The footage immediately sent shockwaves through the Chinese government. Just two days after it began circulating, both the Director and Deputy Director of the National Security Bureau were removed from their positions. This bureau is responsible for establishing secrecy regulations and supervising classified materials. And the trial video of Xu Qinxin was, of course, top secret. Even those within the military needed approval from the Central Military Commission to view it. Such a leak inevitably held the bureau's leadership accountable. The video captures in detail the CCP's process of issuing orders to deploy troops for the crackdown, and it reveals that the party was far from unified. Not only did senior leaders hold differing views, but many officers within the People's Liberation Army also opposed the operation. Some even openly disobeyed orders. Xu Qinxin was the most prominent among them. Who is Xu Qinxin? Xu Qinxin was born in August 1935 in Ye County, now Laizhou, Shandong Province, into a long line of poor farming families. In 1943, while the war against Japan was still raging, his father took eight-year-old Xu to Shen Yun in northeast China to make a living. At that time, the northeast was still under the rule of Manchukuo. Japan had poured resources into developing the region's economy faster than the mainland's. Yet even so, the Xu family lived in extreme hardship after arriving there. Before finishing elementary school, Xu had to follow his father to the market to sell vegetables, firmly part of the lowest social strata. In 1950, when the Korean War broke out, the People's Liberation Army began recruiting in the northeast. Fifteen-year-old Xu volunteered but was rejected for being too young. Determined, he bit his finger and wrote a letter in blood begging to join the battlefield. He was eventually accepted. He was assigned to the 1st Tank Regiment, becoming one of China's earliest armored troops, and was sent to Korea as a radio operator. There, he distinguished himself repeatedly. Combined with his proletarian class background, he received special grooming and rose quickly through the ranks. He later became commander of the 1st Tank Division. In 1987, he was appointed commander of the 38th Army Corps and promoted to major general. The 38th Corps, often called the 10,000-Year Corps, was the PLA's most elite force, later renamed the 82nd Group Army. The corps consisted of two mechanized infantry divisions, one tank division, and numerous artillery, air defense, aviation, and special operations brigades, totaling nearly 70,000 troops. Stationed in Baoding and under the it was the key force responsible for defending Beijing, essentially the regime's true imperial guard. The PLA's most advanced equipment was always prioritized for the 38th, making it the elite among elites. Because of its importance, the commander of the 38th Corps was typically appointed directly by the chairman of the Central Military Commission, and the position promised a promising future. Xu Qinxian was able to rise to command this imperial guard, not only because of his military achievements, but also because he was personally groomed by Deng Xiaoping. In 1981, Deng organized the largest military exercise in PLA history at Zhangjiakou, involving over 100,000 troops. The purpose was both to prepare for potential conflict with Vietnam and to elevate trusted commanders. At the time, Xu was commander of the 1st Tank Division, which achieved the best results in the entire exercise. Deng Xiaoping personally selected him and promoted him to head the 38th Army Corps. Yet Deng could never have imagined that the very general he personally elevated would become his toughest obstacle during the 1989 Tiananmen incident. In April 1989, the sudden death of Hu Yaoban became the spark that ignited the student movement in Beijing. The nationwide push for political reform spread rapidly across China. By mid-May, the protests in Beijing had reached their peak. Within the Chinese Communist Party, two opposing factions had formed. The reformist camp, led by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, advocated dialogue, while the party elders, represented by Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun, insisted on a hardline crackdown. Tensions within the top leadership escalated to the breaking point. On May 19, Deng Xiaoping convened a meeting at his residence at No. 5 Miaolingku Hutong, with senior figures such as Chen Yun, Yang Shangkun, and Li Shanian in attendance. They decided to remove Zhao Ziyang from power and resolve the protests by force. On May 20, Premier Li Peng formally declared martial law on behalf of the State Council. On May 22, Zhao Ziyang was suspended from all his positions and stripped of authority. Chen Yun subsequently took direct control. On May 26, he held a plenary meeting of Central Committee members within the Advisory Commission, demanding that everyone publicly state their position, effectively forcing them to endorse the use of force. Afterward, Deng Xiaoping mobilized troops from five major military regions across the country, selecting 30 elite divisions from 14 army corps—roughly 250,000 soldiers—to march toward Beijing to carry out the crackdown. At the top of the deployment list was the 38th Army Corps under Xu Qinxian. Because the 38th Corps was responsible for defending the capital, the task was essentially mandatory and impossible to refuse. At the time, Xu Qinxian was undergoing treatment for kidney stones at the PLA General Hospital of the Beijing Military Region, better known as the prestigious 301 Hospital. As early as May 17, even before the State Council announced martial law, he had heard the news. Li Laiju, deputy commander of the Beijing Military Region, notified him that the 38th Corps needed to prepare to leave its barracks and enter Beijing to enforce martial law. Unexpectedly, Xu immediately voiced his resistance. Without written orders, I cannot carry out verbal commands. Li Laiju replied, There is no written order today. It will be issued later. This is how things work during wartime. Xu responded, This is not wartime. Without a written order, I cannot accept the command. An angry Li Laiju said he would issue the order through Xu's political commissar instead. But Xu added, This order should be withdrawn. A matter of such importance must be seriously discussed by the Politburo, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the State Council. It cannot be handled this way. Everyone knows that a soldier's duty is to obey. Yet Xu openly refused his superior's order on the spot, insisting on a written directive. Was this legal? Entirely. Since 1949, any order mobilizing troops beyond their military region required the signature of the chairman of the Central Military Commission and approval by the vice-chairs before being transmitted through the general staff to lower-level commands. Without this process, the army could not legally be deployed. At that time, Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shengkun had signed the order, but Zhao Ziyan had not. As chairman of the CMC, Deng Xiaoping issued verbal orders precisely because he was bypassing the party-government-military chain of command. The troop mobilization order was issued even before the State Council declared martial law, and it stemmed from a decision made solely by Deng and a few party elders, not the Politburo. If a formal, written order were issued, it would expose that Deng Xiaoping was unilaterally mobilizing the military, overstepping both party and state authority. Xu Qinqian, personally promoted by Deng himself, of course understood exactly whose order it was, yet he still insisted on written authorization. He was a rare exception among CCP generals. Though he came from a poor background and had little formal education, he never finished elementary school, within the military he was known as a scholar-general, fond of books and literature. A man like that naturally had an independent mind. Had Xu obeyed the order to suppress the protests in 1989, his next post would almost certainly have been commander of the Beijing military region, and from there, he could very well have risen to vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. But he made a choice heavier than any military rank. In the leaked interrogation video, when the judge asked whether his refusal to obey orders was influenced by bourgeois liberalization or by Zhao Ziyang's erroneous thinking, Xu Qinqian firmly denied it. He replied calmly and objectively, I felt the order wasn't sufficiently rigorous. Carrying it out could harm civilians. Therefore, I believed it needed to be reconsidered. This shows that he had formed his own judgment about the Tiananmen incident and he had seen events unfold with his own eyes, since the 301 hospital was located right on Chang'an Avenue, the heart of the movement. After refusing the order, he told his subordinates, using the military is a grave matter. I believe this must be discussed by the full session of the NPC Standing Committee and the State Council. That would be the proper process. An order like this must be issued by the state, not in the name of the party. This action must withstand the test of history. Something may not be clear in the short term, but history will reveal the truth. Doing this mission could make you a hero or a criminal in the eyes of history. To carry weapons for such a task, I cannot do it. The Central Military Commission can appoint me as commander or remove me, but I cannot carry out this order. The presiding officer cut him off, forbidding him from talking politics. Xu replied, I'm only stating the facts, and the outcome that followed is now well known. Xu Qinqian was stripped of his command of the 38th Army Corps. A week later, on May 23, 1989, he was officially dismissed as commander. On September 11, shortly after being discharged from the hospital, he was placed under house arrest and lost all personal freedom. On January 9, 1990, he was detained by the military procurator of the Beijing Military Region. On March 17 of the same year, he was tried in a secret military court, the very trial shown in the leaked video. Xu Qinqian was expelled from the party and sentenced to five years in prison for failing to obey the order to enforce martial law. He was imprisoned at the notorious Qincheng Prison, which had held figures such as Yao Wenyuan of the Gang of Four and Bao Tom, Zhao Ziyang's secretary. In 1994, after completing his sentence, the authorities arranged for him to reside in Baoding, Hebei Province, with benefits and privileges equivalent to a deputy Army Corps leader. But because the 38th Army Corps was based in Baoding, meaning many of his former subordinates were nearby, the government moved him again to Xijiazhuang to avoid complications. In 2011, a reporter from Hong Kong's Apple Daily interviewed Li Rui, Mao Zedong's former secretary, in Beijing and happened to encounter Xu Qinqian visiting him. Xu was 76 at the time. The reporter seized the chance and asked, Do you regret your decision back then? Xu Qinqian replied, What's done is done. Regret is useless. If you choose not to act, that's one thing, but once you act, there's nothing to regret. This wasn't a war. It was a political event. Political events cannot be handled like that. At that time, it was not appropriate to use force. It should have been resolved through dialogue. That was a political issue. This unexpected interview resulted in even stricter monitoring of him, leaving him with almost no room for expression. On January 8, 2021, after decades of tight surveillance, Xu Qinqian passed away in Xijiazhuang at the age of 86. Why did the video surface precisely in 2025? Viewed from a political angle, the leak is an extension of ongoing power struggles. From the perspective of military reform, it resembles a manifesto. But from a deeper civilizational standpoint, it is a return to conscience. The message being sent now is this, the military does not necessarily have to obey the party anymore. After 1978, many reform-minded generals proposed that the military should belong to the nation. But Deng Xiaoping rejected the idea outright. Why? Because if the military belongs to the party, the party holds power. But if the military belongs to the state, then the people hold power, something intolerable to an authoritarian system. Yet this video is telling Chinese soldiers, the honor of a soldier lies not only in obedience to authority, but in protecting the people. The mission of the military is not to safeguard a political party, but to safeguard the nation. And when orders clash with conscience, humanity itself becomes the highest command. As Xu Qinqian once said, history can prove everything. Today, in 2025, history has begun to show that he was not the one on trial. He is the one putting the CCP's history on trial. And this video may well be the first spring thunder marking the beginning of the PLA's transition from the party's army to the nation's army. When those in power demand unconditional loyalty, the moral judgment of each individual becomes the variable the regime fears most. From this perspective, Xu Qinqian's refusal to obey was not an isolated incident, but a reminder. A military does not naturally belong to any political party. It is composed of real human beings, people who think, who struggle internally, who can distinguish right from wrong. When a regime asks them to suppress their conscience, distort their judgment, or even betray universal moral principles, they are entirely capable of saying no to power. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you and see you next time.