What does General Xu Qinxian’s leaked trial footage reveal about how martial law orders were communicated in 1989?
Executive summary
The newly leaked six‑hour court‑martial video of General Xu Qinxian provides direct, contemporaneous testimony that martial law deployment orders in May 1989 were primarily communicated orally and through personal summonses rather than through written, traceable directives, a practice that created little documentary record and helped contain dissent inside the PLA [1] [2] [3]. The footage also shows operational specificity in those oral orders—including weapons requirements—and confirms that the trial itself was held as a secret, “state secrets” proceeding, which shapes both how the orders were given and how they were later prosecuted [4] [5] [6].
1. How the orders reached a frontline commander: oral transfer in a closed meeting
Xu’s testimony in the trial recounts that on May 18 he was summoned to the Beijing Military Region headquarters and told the Central Military Commission’s decision to mobilize the 38th Group Army; the transcript specifies that Political Commissar Liu Zhenhua and other leaders conveyed the order in a conference room on the third floor of the military region building, indicating an oral, face‑to‑face handoff rather than a formal written order [3] [7].
2. No paper trail — an intentional opacity, according to historians and the footage
Multiple reporting and scholars quoted in the coverage stress that the martial law instructions were issued orally, leaving “no paper trail,” a point Wu Renhua and other observers call the most important revelation in decades of June 4 research because it explains why documentary evidence has been scarce and why responsibility was difficult to trace in later prosecutions [1] [8] [2].
3. Individual summonses and compartmentalization as a control mechanism
The video and subsequent reporting portray a pattern of summoning individual generals—Xu was taken from a hospital bed—rather than issuing collective written directives to units; journalists and historians interpret that tactic as designed to isolate potential objectors, reduce the chance of coordinated refusals, and limit contemporaneous records of dissent [2] [1] [9].
4. Operational detail delivered orally — scope and severity of orders revealed
Beyond the fact of oral delivery, the footage and accompanying translations show the orders contained concrete operational instructions, including directives for the 38th Army to deploy as part of an initial force and, according to trial testimony cited in multiple outlets, explicit requirements that troops carry both light and heavy machine guns—details that demonstrate the orders were not vague political statements but actionable combat instructions handed down verbally [1] [3] [4].
5. The trial’s secrecy and the politics of disclosure shape interpretation
The trial was held under the rubric of “state secrets,” with the presiding judge asserting its closed nature, and the post‑trial dissemination of the video decades later—shared publicly by historians and human‑rights groups—carries its own political freight; reporting notes both the rarity of such footage and the fact that the leak, the identities of its source, and editorial choices about what to emphasize all affect how the oral‑order narrative is understood [5] [6] [9].
6. Alternative readings and evidentiary limits
While the footage powerfully corroborates first‑hand claims that orders were oral and individualized, alternative interpretations exist: some analysts argue Xu’s refusal and its publicity may have prompted harder discipline elsewhere, and the absence of written orders could reflect chaotic crisis management as much as deliberate coverup; importantly, all conclusions rest on the leaked recording and the journalists, translators, and scholars who have presented it—material outside these reports cannot be independently verified here [8] [1] [2].
7. What the footage changes about the historical record
Taken together, the secret trial video shifts the evidentiary balance by giving live testimony that confirms oral, face‑to‑face transmission of martial law orders, the use of personal summonses and compartmentalization to manage dissent, and operational specificity in those verbal commands, thereby explaining both why documentary traces were scant and why internal dissent like Xu’s could be prosecuted despite the lack of written directives [3] [1] [4].