Video shows Gen Xu Qinxian explaining why he refused to deploy troops to crush 1989 student-led demonstrations
Rare footage of a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general who defied orders to lead his troops into Tiananmen Square and crush the 1989 student protesters 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.
General Xu Qinxian’s refusal to take his troops from the PLA’s prestigious 38th Group Army, a unit based on the outskirts of Beijing, into the capital has been the stuff of Tiananmen lore for decades.
The six-hour video recording of Gen Xu’s court martial hearing the next year sheds light on the rare act of defiance. In the video, Xu said he refused because he did not want to become “a sinner in history”.
Every year before the Christmas holidays, Romanian TV channels show many images, videos and testimonies from the Romanian revolution, where the military fired into, and killed many civilians. We’re not afraid to grapple with our history, even 36 years later.
Sure. But this is World News. And it’s constantly filled with “remember when China was a shit hole and America was a superpower?!”.
Do you think if new footage of the Romanian revolution was found it would be on the top of a World News sub? No. Because the West isn’t trying to manufacture consent for a war with Romania.
That’s my point. It’s not that the footage isn’t meaningful. It’s WHAT the footage is being used for by it being covered by western media and the response (see the comments here) that it instills.
Bro no one cares about Romania because we’re not worthy of anyone’s attention, genuinely, we’re like a tiny speck of dust in the global economy or geopolitics, don’t give me this “manufacture consent” talk.
I do think that China gets portrayed unfairly negatively in western media sometime, but look at our society that thinks Nazis were cool because the Hitler or Mussolini edit some 14 yo did on Tiktok. People need reminders of the horrors of the past, not just the rosey state approved calls to a “period of former glory”
I don’t disagree. But you didn’t really get my point.
No I don’t think I do. My bad
It’s ok. Respect to anyone that knows more than one language. I just found your initial comment interesting.
I was trying to make the point that China is a focus of western media because they are a threat to the interest of the wealthy people that rule the US; or at the very least want them to be seen as a threat. So, any chance to talk about past events the western audience views as negative towards China, like Tiananman Square, makes world news.
In contrast to your comment about Romania. I agree. The west would not care. Not because it is not historically interesting or relevant, but because Romania is not a threat to western interests. So they don’t jump on the opportunity to display them in a negative light. They largely ignore anything that happens there. Unless one of our sex offenders like Andrew Tate decides to make his home there. Sorry about that lol.
Not sure if that clarifies it. But I don’t disagree with what you said about the west not caring about Romanian history. Our media decides to cover things that uphold the interest of our ruling wealthy class.
Don’t be sorry for Andrew Tate coming here, femicide and sex trafficking (often of minors, often by their own families) is a big issue and probably why Tate decided to come here.
Besides the point, I get your idea, and I think western media has a direct interest in painting China in a bad light, it’s an ideology war: the post-Thatcher, post-Reagan small state, deregulation by all means, vs a state capitalist model that is starting to have big soft power around the world.
I do think China engages in the same kind of game, but because most of the world doesn’t speak Mandarin yet, this isn’t as broadly seen. I think of the yearly “Reports on Human Rights abuses in the US” by Xinhua, or the aunties going “美國完蛋了” endlessly on their Kuaishou pages lol