A six-hour video of the secret trial of Xu Qinxian—the Tiananmen general who refused orders—was released on Nov. 24, 2025. Video screenshot
A previously unseen video recording of a Chinese general’s secret military trial for refusing to carry out orders during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre has surfaced online in the past few days, offering a unique look into one of the most sensitive cases from the period.
On Nov. 24, Wu Renhua, a Chinese scholar and participant in the 1989 Tiananmen protests, shared the full video on X. The six-hour video, now taken down from the Internet Archive and uploaded on YouTube by Human Rights in China, showed the trial of Major General Xu Qinxian, on March 17, 1990, who was the commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s 38th Group Army at the time.
