TAIPEI ¨C When China¡¯s rulers ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to crush pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989, Gen. Xu Qinxian was the commander who famously said no.
He refused to lead his troops into the capital to help clear the protesters in Tiananmen Square by armed force. For decades, the story of his defiance remained murky.
Now, a leaked video of his secret court-martial has shed a rare light on Xu, and on the tensions inside the military as Deng Xiaoping, China¡¯s paramount leader at the time, prepared to send the soldiers into Beijing. That deployment culminated in the killing of hundreds ¡ª by some estimates, thousands ¡ª of unarmed people on June 3 and 4 as soldiers fired on protesters and bystanders.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.