Xu Qinxian

Xu Qinxian was born in August 1935 in Ye County (now Laizhou), Shandong Province. He was sometimes mistakenly thought to be related to General Xu Haidong. After the outbreak of the Korean War, he volunteered for the army and was initially rejected because he was underage. The 38th Group Army was a key unit defending Beijing and was based in Baoding, Hebei, about 90 miles south of Beijing. It was the largest, most-mechanized, and best-trained unit of its size in the Chinese military. Xu was a protege of Defense Minister Qin Jiwei, who would also later have reservations about enforcing the crackdown during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. ==Refusal of orders during the Tiananmen Square protests==

In March 1989, Xu was wounded in a grenade training accident and sent to the Beijing Military Region (BMR) Hospital in the capital. On 18 May, President Yang Shangkun heard of Xu's refusal and could not sleep for days. He consulted with the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, who said that a soldier like Xu could not disobey the order. Xu was then arrested in the hospital and taken to be court martialled. According to The Tiananmen Papers, Yang sent Zhou Yibing, the commander of the BMR, to Baoding to persuade Xu. Xu asked Zhou whether the three principals of the Central Military Commission had approved the martial law order. Zhou replied that while Deng Xiaoping, the chairman, and Yang Shangkun, the vice-chairman, had approved, Zhao Ziyang, the first vice-chairman (and the General Secretary of the CCP), had not. Without Zhao's approval, Xu refused to act on the order and asked for sick leave. His request was not granted but he still refused to report to duty. Xu's defiance fanned fears in the CCP of a rebellion among the military and heightened the belief that the student protesters were a serious threat that had to be eliminated. The 38th Group Army under new leadership proceeded to play a major role in suppressing the demonstrators. Many of Xu Qinxian's former colleagues were promoted for their roles. ==Trial and punishment==

Xu was court-martialled before a military tribunal in 1990. At his trial, he remained defiant, declaring that "the People's Army has never in its history been used to suppress the people, I absolutely refuse to besmirch this historical record!" including that the order to militarily crush the protests was given orally, without a paper trail. Six hours of footage from Xi's closed-door trial was posted on YouTube, which is blocked in China. Several people posted the video, including Wu Renhua, and experts regard it as authentic. While being questioned in civilian garb, Xu said he declined to be a "sinner to history"; he conceded that the CCP controlled the military, but said that ordering the PLA to attack the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square required deliberation by the National People's Congress. Xu was expelled from the CCP and sentenced to five years in prison. According to Gao Yu, Xu was transferred from a military detention centre to Qincheng Prison by Yang Baibing of the People's Liberation Army General Political Department to serve his sentence. He served four years in Qincheng Prison and the fifth year in a police hospital. After he served his sentence, he was exiled to Shijiazhuang, Hebei, by Jiang Zemin, the new paramount leader of China. Xu also had his entitlements reduced, as if he had been demoted to the position of a deputy commander of the provincial military division of Hebei Province. ==Life in exile==

For 20 years, Xu's whereabouts were unknown, until a 2009 article by Asia Weekly reported that he was forbidden from living in Beijing and had been forced to live in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. Xu talked about his life after Tiananmen, confirming his expulsion from the party, and his treatment as if he was the deputy commander of a military region. Xu also said he had access to news and was able to travel between Beijing and his home in Shijiazhuang. He expressed no regrets about his actions during the Tiananmen protests. The interview provoked government ire and Xu was confined to Shijiazhuang for the rest of his life, Xu was married and had a son and a daughter. ==References==