{"id":75733,"date":"2025-12-24T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/24\/rare-footage-from-trial-of-chinese-general-who-defied-tiananmen-crackdown-order-leaked-online"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:00:57","slug":"rare-footage-from-trial-of-chinese-general-who-defied-tiananmen-crackdown-order-leaked-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=75733","title":{"rendered":"Rare footage from trial of Chinese general who defied Tiananmen crackdown order leaked online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Video shows Gen Xu Qinxian explaining why he refused to deploy troops to crush 1989 student-led demonstrations<\/p>\n<p>Rare footage of a People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) general who defied orders to lead his troops into Tiananmen Square and crush the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/may\/09\/tiananmen-square-china-steps-up-curbs-on-activists-for-30th-anniversary\">1989 student protesters<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>General Xu Qinxian\u2019s refusal to take his troops from the PLA\u2019s prestigious 38th Group Army, a unit based on the outskirts of Beijing, into the capital has been the stuff of Tiananmen lore for decades.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/24\/rare-footage-from-trial-of-chinese-general-who-defied-tiananmen-crackdown-order-leaked-online\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video shows Gen Xu Qinxian explaining why he refused to deploy troops to crush 1989 student-led demonstrationsRare footage of a People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) general who defied orders to lead his troops into Tiananmen Square and crush the 1989 student&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3580,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,662,614,80,431,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-communism","category-history","category-protest","category-tiananmen-square-protests-1989","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75734,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75733\/revisions\/75734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}