Video shows Gen Xu Qinxian explaining why he refused to deploy troops to crush 1989 student-led demonstrations
Rare footage of a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general who defied orders to lead his troops into Tiananmen Square and crush the 1989 student protesters has been leaked online, offering a highly unusual glimpse into the upper echelons of the military at one of the most fraught moments in modern Chinese history.
General Xu Qinxian’s refusal to take his troops from the PLA’s prestigious 38th Group Army, a unit based on the outskirts of Beijing, into the capital has been the stuff of Tiananmen lore for decades.
The six-hour video recording of Gen Xu’s court martial hearing the next year sheds light on the rare act of defiance. In the video, Xu said he refused because he did not want to become “a sinner in history”.
Good man. Too bad China kills good people. It’s a horrible empire.
He wasn’t killed, he was court marshalled and released five years later. He died in '21 at the ripe old age of 85
It seems like all empires are horrible to me. Humans suck, especially when they have power
It’s a flaw of empires in general. They become this pervasive machine where ends always justify the means and there’s just too much power and slow rare of change. Just a bad system no matter how you look at it.
I agree, that’s why all empires must die
Yeah.
There’s lots of instances throughout history that prove that humans with power suck.
I like to think that it’s because nice people aren’t the type to accumulate power rather than power corrupts nice people who do get power.
Power corrupts insecure people
I think we make the mistake of letting people govern groups of people that they are too distant from to care about. Leaders are essential, but they have to care about the people they lead. I dont think its actually possible to care about people a thousand miles away the same way as the people in your community. I think this is why the largest countries that are controlled by the fewest people have the most problems. Its a delegation issue essentially.
A good point. Though I was surprised to read this particular dissident only got 5 years in prison and exile from Beijing.
Seems like standard procedure to higher ups in China. They did something similar to Xi Jinping‘s father when he spoke out against a violent solution for the protests. Too bad Xi learned all the wrong lesson‘s from his dad‘s political exile.
Did they kill him?
He went to prison for 5 years and then lived into his 80s.
With a clear continence.
They killed him in the slowest way possible 😔
We put him in the time machine but it only goes forwards at normal speed!
I build a time machine that allows you to travel into the future at 60 seconds per minute.
Literally not an empire. Don’t get your terms mixed!
It doesn’t matter. Folks see a foreign country doing foreign things foreign-ly, rather than toeing the NATO line, and they’re evil incarnate.
Meanwhile, NATO allies - from the Brits to the Saudis to the insanely corrupt Philippian government - go fully under the radar of liberals.
China’s biggest crime right now is their success. They aren’t being crippled by sanctions like Cuba, gunned down like Venezuela, or systematically genocided like Palatine. So they must be doing the most nightmarish things imaginable to their people - and to the rest of the world - in order to no-sell American foreign policy.
Dude, China has literally expanded it’s borders during our lifetime, there are huge populations that speak entirety different languages and have completely different cultures inside their borders. It’s an empire.
Then what do you call what they’re doing in Africa?
And how they got most of their current territory, like Tibet?
Same thing the US does, no? Except China is more efficient
The US is an empire
You won’t see me defend the US’s imperial actions