Saboteur: Main Ideas

Academia is powerless in a police state.

Mr. Chiu appears to be well-respected as a lecturer, given his position at the university and his preparations to speak at a conference, but the story demonstrates that Mr. Chiu’s academic status does not aid him in any way when the police arrest him. Instead, it appears that Mr. Chiu’s work as a lecturer only earns him additional scorn and mockery from the police. Mr. Chiu’s appeals, based on his work at the university and his need to get home so he can prepare for an upcoming conference, do not hold any sway with the policemen. This is also the case when Mr. Chiu is brought to meet with the police chief and his aides. The chief’s donkey-faced aide makes a cutting remark about people such as Mr. Chiu. While the aide does not specifically say what he means by that, it can be inferred to be a derogatory remark against academics and intellectuals. It is also notable that the university has not been told to send someone to assist Mr. Chiu. This is partly due to the inexperience of Mr. Chiu’s bride. However, given the events of the story, it is unlikely that an official response from a wealthy university with its own legal resources would have been effective in aiding Mr. Chiu. In a moment of anger, even Mr. Chiu finds himself doubting the practical use of academic knowledge when he mentally lashes out at his wife for having her head full of foreign novels but no sense of what to do when her husband is arrested. By its very nature, Mr. Chiu’s status among the elite proves meaningless in the eyes of the Chinese government.

A police state needs to create saboteurs to maintain its hold on society.

The many spectators are unwilling to step forward and speak on Mr. Chiu’s behalf against the police, which illustrates the state’s hold on society. Like Mr. Chiu’s bride, they watch events play out from the sidelines. This may be ascribed to fear, apathy, a genuine belief in the goodness of the police, or the conviction that any person who steps out of line should be punished. Plenty of people appear all too willing to provide written statements to the police describing Mr. Chiu’s actions and guilt. Ha Jin does not describe exactly how these statements were obtained nor whether any coercion of the witnesses or forgery of the statements was involved, but the end result is the same: by framing Mr. Chiu as the wrongdoer, the police and the judicial authorities are able to maintain their status over the people. Besides using brute force against dissenters or people who are believed to be dissenters, the police here exercise a form of psychological control over the rest of the population. It may be easier for people to believe in the guilt of one person like Mr. Chiu than to process the fact that the entire legal system in their society is corrupt and tainted. This allows the police to maintain control by weaponizing the people’s unwillingness to speak up or fight back.

Violence leads to more violence.

The policemen’s attack at the train station, beginning with a thrown bowl of tea, is the catalyst for the entire story. If not for the attack, Mr. Chiu and his bride would have continued on their way home, and none of the following events, including Fenjin’s torture and the hepatitis outbreak, would have occurred. The attack quickly grows in intensity and progresses to a beating and manhandling by the police before Mr. Chiu is taken away. During his time in prison, Mr. Chiu’s thoughts of vengeance grow progressively more violent, and his intentions extend to thoughts of murdering the policemen and even their families. These thoughts might never have occurred to Mr. Chiu under more normal circumstances. In this respect, it may be inferred that his brief time in prison has brought about a profound change in him. Instead of a man who believes in logic and reason, one who trusts in the institutions of education, the media, and the law, Mr. Chiu transforms into a man who seeks revenge, and he does not seem to care how many people have to be harmed. Most notably, the hepatitis outbreak Mr. Chiu ostensibly summons causes widespread human damage in Muji. The throwing of a bowl of tea, an act that would be considered at most rude and inconsiderate, indirectly leads to a deadly outbreak.

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