Conrad, Jin, and Postcolonial Literature

After spending a few days reading and discussing Jin's work, it's clear to me now that he had something to say and used English as his means of saying it.  Had he chosen to write it in Chinese, he would have alienated the very audience for which (I believe) he intended his writing for.  That is to say that Jin wanted westerners to gain a better understanding of the political and cultural differences between the east and west.  What's interesting in his writing is that he is very careful and deliberate in painting a scene and telling a story without actually demonizing anyone. For example, in "Saboteur" he writes about the police have mistreated a Chiu.  Instead of going on and on about how EVIL the state is, he balances the story with Chiu later purposefully spreading his hepatitis.  In "Cowboy Chicken", he shows Mr. Shapiro as a greedy capitalist, but he then shows the Chinese actually doing the same things when they wanted to have Peter fired and his divided amongst them.  He has had his feet firmly planted in both worlds and uses that knowledge to tell creative stories that reflect the realities of life in China. 

Had Conrad written his novel in Polish there's almost every certainty that his writing would have fallen into that exclusive group of writers in Poland that had a lot to say, with no audience to read it.  All kidding aside, I believe that Conrad made a conscious choice in writing in English because he knew very well that the majority of the powers most involved in colonialism at the time were in fact Western Europeans and almost all, English speaking on some level.  Even the Americans were involved in colonialism (just ask the Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and almost everyone in Central and South America).  To make the greatest impact and reach the largest target audience, he made the only logical choice at the time.  Of course, we'll never really know what would have become of it if he had written in French or Spanish, but my guess is that it would have whithered on the vine.  He took advantage of a receptive audience and made the most of his it.