Once a Soldier, Always a Soldier: A Typological Analysis of Military Delinquency Based on the Military-cum-Social Problem of Soldiers/Bandits in China, 1890s to Early 1950s

In traditional or Old China, (especially from the 1890s through 1940s), soldiers seemed to enjoy “unlimited” opportunities to engage in bandit activities (e.g., looting villages, setting civilian houses on fire, extorting landlords, abducting and trafficking children, gang raping women, etc.). One important factor that allowed these armed personnel to commit various criminal acts was that China did not have an integrated military system before the 1950s. Therefore, state managers usually could not supervise (let along regulate) the behavior of soldiers. Given that an institutionalized system that could put soldiers under state control was missing, it was not surprising that when soldiers were sent to a certain battlefield that villages, rural towns, and cities surrounding that combat zone were always raided and looted by soldiers turned bandits. Unlike those “wicked” soldiers who became involved in various social evils related to banditry, hundreds of thousands of “good” bandits in Old China joined regular troops. This “righteous act” basically was connected with the fact that almost all bandits, as desperados, lived in a “Darwinian” world. Since this world is governed entirely by the law of competition (i.e., only the “strongest” and the “smartest” could survive), leaders of bandit gangs usually could not ascertain whether they can continue doing those “businesses” that do require investment in the foreseeable future. As a result of this uncertainty, joining regular armies (if this “application” was officially approved by the authorities) was normally the “best choice” for armed bandits (whether they were core members or followers). In other words, becoming a part of government troops usually allowed chiefs and adherents of bandit gangs to enjoy miscellaneous benefits (such as formal military rank, social position, and state-controlled resources like stipend, ammunition, and weapons). As these benefits include the elements of legitimacy and economic security, “big brothers” of bandit blocs generally wished that their personal troops could be transformed into part of the formal troops in order that the marginalized and illicit status of such private troops be terminated. In this paper, the issue of military delinquency will be explored; by using the interactive relationship between Chinese soldiers and Chinese bandits during the period of late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries as an example, the goal of this article is to examine those socioeconomic contexts that provide military personnel with opportunities to perpetrate antisocial or criminal behaviors. Four “Big Jobs” will be performed in this paper: first, the structural factors which, before the 1950s, gave Chinese soldiers opportunities to commit bandit acts will be addressed; then, the environmental causes that motivated marginalized populations (chiefly males) to join bandit gangs will be listed. After these two issues have been inspected, the connection between soldier-bandits and bandit-soldiers will be analyzed. The implications of this relationship will be summarized in the final section.