SpringerBriefs in Criminology. Singapore; New York: Springer, 2014. xii, 97 pp. (Figure.) US$54.99, paper. ISBN 978-981-4560-01-6.
The author improves the field by amassing information from different disciplines about child soldiering in Myanmar on the Chinese border, and organizing this into a coherent structure. Readers enjoy a better understanding of child soldiering and regional affairs after reading this brief.
The author’s introduction is a thorough historical review. It contributes to the discipline by showing child soldiering is both a Western and non-Western phenomenon. “So the definition of child soldiering should refer to a process of associating any person below 18 years of age with any armed force or group which contains recruitment, training and deployment” (18). By this measure, one of the reviewers was a child soldier; rejected at 16 and accepted at 17 as a volunteer by the US Marines. “Child soldiering is a by-product of the long-lasting ethnic conflicts since the independence in 1948” (19). The author surveys the history and attitudes of the main military forces: Tatmadaw Kyi (Myanmar Army), United Wa State Army (UWSA), and Kachin Independent Army (KIA). This section lacks a discussion of covert and overt interventions by Myanmar’s neighbours.
The author highlights a relevant demographic fact: 39 percent of Myanmar is of potential child soldiering age. Of the 58 million citizens, 23 million are under 18, a rich target for recruitment (41–42). More such illustrations, especially maps of Shan State, Kachin State, and Yunnan Province, will improve a second edition of this brief.
Chapter 5 is especially strong. The author shows original thinking by devising a plausible typology for the child soldier/recruitment relationship, and discusses it with specific examples: victim-coercer relationship; patron
-client relationship; and comradeship.
Chapter 6 purports to show why other children are not recruited. The author looks at disabled children, child labour, and children seeking evacuation, but does not prove these factors bar recruitment. Those already using child soldiers as cannon fodder (28) might enlist children with disabilities. He assures us that employed children are safe from combat since ethnic-based militias do not recruit them; then notes some child laborers are abducted into child soldiering by the Myanmar Army (65). He jams several disparate categories into “children seeking evacuation.” Sending boys to Buddhist monasteries may protect them from the Army, but not necessarily from any non-Buddhist militias. If an evacuation is successful, or the child falls victim to the extensive human trafficking industry, they are by definition out of the reach of the military—for better, or perhaps far worse.
The author overreaches in chapter 9 when he suggests as an area for future study, “China-U.S. cooperation in governing child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border … In contrast with the issues in North Korea and South China Sea, child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border would provide a strategic opportunity for China-U.S. security cooperation in the future” (94). The author defines limited statehood as a situation in which the “central government is unable to implement and enforce rules in certain parts (or part) in its territory (Risse 2012)” (11). He asserts that child soldiering is beyond Myanmar’s control. He uses NGO allegations to support designating Myanmar as a failed state. It is then a simple step to consider foreign “cooperation in governing” (95).
By asserting that Myanmar is a failed state due to allowing human rights abuses, the author contemplates usurping the sovereignty of Myanmar. We leave it to the readers to remember other situations, historical and current, with similar justifications for foreign intervention.
The author is well situated to make this research his life’s work. As a native Chinese scholar, he can study academic journals as well as government documents from China and the UWSA regime—which, he points out, governs in Chinese (24). Some former child soldiers speak Chinese, so he can conduct primary research interviews in Yunnan with border crossers.
He’ll need research allies. A lecture series in Chinese by the author (in person or social media), targeting the three dozen universities in Yunnan Province, might interest academics to study child soldiering in their own backyard.
This region and problem are highly topical. The author references the 2009 “Kokang Crisis” (32). In 2015, after the publication of this work, Kokang (a predominantly ethnic-Chinese county in Myanmar) erupted again. Reviewing a March 2015 photo set by Reuters, we estimate 30 percent of the images depict child soldiers (REUTERS/Stringer, “Myanmar’s China-backed rebels,” 10 March 2015, http://tinyurl.com/jdbq3sf/ accessed 6 July 2016).
The dozens of grammar, bibliographic, citation, spelling, spacing, and word choice errors are distracting: “The KIA insists to recruit such kind of children without outside involvement” (25), “the situations of child soldiers and other groups of venerable children” (12). An article he discusses extensively (46) is not in the references.
The author should guard against internal inconsistencies: “The depictions of child soldiers as morally stunted and relentless killers are quite common and are often uncritically propagated by the media (Wainryb 2011)” (88–89). Earlier, he warns China: “It’s critical to note that some child soldiers’ very ignorance of normal morality would make them extremely dangerous (Singer 2005)” (32).
The author needs more government publications/position papers by Myanmar and China. Overreliance on either NGOs or governments for information is a mistake, as each might report selectively based on self-interest.
When discussing Myanmar child soldiering, the author sometimes cites non-Myanmar works without geographic disclosure. For instance, he references Christine Ryan’s book on Sudanese child soldiers to support his point on negative consequences to China (32). The reader deserves to weigh human nature vs. cultural/regional differences.
We recommend you read this compact volume. The author successfully organizes disparate information, enhancing our understanding of a little-studied, complex region, and thus encouraging the reader to care academically about Myanmar and child soldiering. This is a preview of a future book advancing the field in multiple disciplines.
Franklin Mark Osanka
Independent Scholar, Racine, WI, USA
Jeffrey Franklin Osanka
George Washington University, Washington DC, USA
pp. 717-719