在1989年5月的支持民主抗议中，解放军少将徐勤先拒绝按照命令，调动隶属第38集团军的1.5万名部队执行对北京的戒严任务，而这支部队原本是5万名士兵和多达300辆装甲车辆的一部分。由于这次抗命——当局一直对外保密——他被判处相对较轻的五年徒刑。

最近泄露的、长达六小时的庭审录像记录了他在1990年3月受审的过程，这次秘密军事法庭召开于军队清场天安门、造成数百甚至上千人死亡的九个月之后，呈现出他在咄咄逼人质问下仍然冷静陈述理由和展现道德勇气的样子。尽管中国审查机构在国内封杀这段视频并删除对他的悼念，但它在海外华人社群中被广泛观看。

当年动乱期间还是一名默默无闻地级市党委书记的习近平，从天安门事件和苏联在1991年解体的教训中得出结论：解放军必须始终是党绝对控制下的军队，这也强化了他此后在高层展开的大规模反腐整肃。由天安门史学家吴仁华上传的视频公布后，中国国家保密局局长及其副手于次日被宣布免职，引发外界对两者是否存在关联的广泛揣测。

During the pro-democracy protests of May 1989, PLA Major-General Xu Qinxian refused orders to deploy 15,000 troops from the 38th Army, among 50,000 soldiers and up to 300 armored vehicles assigned to enforce martial law in Beijing. For this act of defiance, which the authorities kept secret, he received a relatively light sentence of five years in prison.

The recently leaked six-hour video of his March 1990 court-martial, held nine months after the army cleared Tiananmen Square by killing hundreds if not thousands of people, reveals his calm justification and moral courage under hostile questioning. While Chinese censors suppress tributes and block the video domestically, it circulates widely among Chinese communities abroad.

Xi Jinping, then a little-known city party chief during the 1989 unrest, drew from Tiananmen and the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse the lesson that the PLA must remain the party’s tightly controlled army, helping to drive his extensive anti-corruption purges in the high command. The video, posted by Tiananmen historian Wu Renhua, was followed the next day by the dismissal of China’s State Secrecy Bureau director and deputy, fueling speculation about a connection.

Source: The general who refused to crush Tiananmen’s protesters

Subtitle: A leaked video of his court-martial has suddenly appeared

Dateline: 12月 04, 2025 04:50 上午