What gives a soldier the courage to refuse an order that endangers the very people his uniform is meant to protect?
What gives a soldier the courage to refuse an order that endangers the very people his uniform is meant to protect?
T omorrow marks the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In commemoration, I would like to reopen a question that has lingered for decades, and one that remains relevant in the West today: What gives a soldier the courage to refuse an order that endangers the very people his uniform is meant to protect?
I cannot find a better answer to this question than the one contained in the six-hour recording of a 1990 Chinese military trial surfaced late last year. The footage shows the court-martial of General Xu Qinxian, commander of the elite 38th Group Army of the People’s Liberation Army, who in May 1989 rejected the directive to lead heavily armed troops into Beijing to enforce martial law and suppress the massive Tiananmen pro-democracy movement. For that refusal, General Xu was imprisoned for five years and lived the remainder of his life under strict surveillance until his death in 2021.
The recording is not simply a window into a repressive moment; it is a study in the anatomy of a conscience. The transcript shows a commander who returned again and again to one essential point: he believed that deploying armored vehicles and live ammunition into a metropolis would inevitably produce bloodshed — and that political, not military, remedies remained possible. In the courtroom, he said such actions “must stand the test of history,” and that what seems murky in the moment gains clarity over time.
Behind these words lay a principle far larger than any individual: moral judgment can be the only compass capable of guiding a person — or a nation — through difficult moments when institutions fail. Well-formed moral instincts do not merely soften political extremism; they can dissolve it. General Xu insisted that the crisis should be resolved “within a democratic and legal framework,” that political disputes required political remedies, and that wielding military power against unarmed civilians would push the state toward a darker, more authoritarian place.
His principled stand carries an implication that needs no belaboring: resorting to domestic military force amid political disputes, whether in autocracies or democracies, corrodes public trust and burdens the uniform with roles it was never meant to bear. The machinery of force cannot solve a crisis rooted in social disagreement; it can only create new wounds.
General Xu’s testimony also revealed something else — something that resonates beyond the borders of the country that judged him. Once a person internalizes a sound humanitarian ethic, their instinctive allegiance shifts toward universal values: legality, accountability, restraint. Witnesses recounted that he questioned why such a consequential order lacked proper civilian authorization. He suggested that matters of this magnitude required debate by national governing bodies and that deploying force demanded a state order, not a party or a leader’s instruction. In essence, he argued — perilously for his era — that the military should belong to the nation, not to any faction within it.
Wherever a military’s loyalty is concentrated in a single individual or ruling bloc, democracy, should it exist, finds itself in a precarious position. Where democracy does not exist, such an arrangement becomes a barrier against it.
But General Xu’s story is not solely about one man. It is also about the unknown soldier who drove the lead tank during the iconic standoff on June 5, 1989, when a lone man carrying shopping bags, Tank Man, stood before a column of armored vehicles. Countless observers have asked why the first tank did not fire on the Tank Man or simply crush him. General Xu’s refusal offers the most credible answer: that driver, too, chose not to kill. In that instant, he became a “Tank Man” in uniform.
These acts of refusal — one in a sealed conference room, the other on a broad boulevard — did not alter the course of the tragedy that followed. But they revealed a universal truth: even within systems built for obedience, the human spirit retains the power to choose compassion over cruelty.
In authoritarian contexts, such acts of conscience create cracks through which democratic possibilities may one day grow. In societies that aspire to be governed by the rule of law and inalienable rights, they serve as guardrails — reminders that the legitimacy of any military force rests not on its firepower but on its fidelity to a constitution and principles of moral restraint.
Professional soldiers everywhere face the question General Xu confronted: when given an illegal or unethical order, will they defend principle or expedience? Will they protect the constitutional order or bend to the passions of the moment? The essence of the dilemma is timeless.
The resurfaced trial footage reminds us that the courage to refuse is often quieter than the courage to obey, and far costlier. General Xu lost his career, his freedom, and eventually the ability to live without surveillance. Yet his words echo with an authority his judges could not silence.
In the end, societies rely not only on laws and institutions but on the invisible moral reserves of individuals who, at crucial moments, must decide what kind of world they are willing to stand for. We all carry, somewhere within, the potential to step forward when history demands it, to summon the better angels of our nature, and to be, in our own ways, Tank Men.