Jingdaophobia

"Jingdaophobia had been the last big export product of a once-respected - and long ago even feared - empire in decline. It spread as a poison to the uneducated masses of eastern Benacia and Tapfer. An easy excuse for their own shortcomings. An even better excuse for mercenaries and thieves to keep large standing armies, ready to pillage and rape their neighbours."

—Jingdaoese professor of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Pentapolis, Tsu Hai

Jingdaophobia can be an aversion to the ruling dynasty of Jingdao and its empire, or to its cultural or religious practices and value systems, or towards the Jing race in its entirety. Or it can be a marked dislike based on elements of all of the above.

A certain ambiguity among scholars in defining the meaning of the term permits the Jingdaoese state to conflate criticisms to Jingdao into a single phobia which it presents, to its own people and to the wider international community, as a mental illness which encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards Jingdaoese people, Jingdaoese culture and the Jingdaoese state. On the the other hand, far-going racism and stereotypes in foreign countries, like depicting the Jing as people who eat dogs to survive, is not uncommon to rally its own people around a cause which it would otherwise not support. Henceforth, the existence of Jingdaophobia has become an integral part in the politics of both USSO and Raspur Pact countries.

According to the research of Jingdao's Unit 666, a biological research laboratory of a certain reputation, there is a strong comorbidity with paranoia and schizophrenia. Persons who exhibit extreme Jingdaophobia are reported to see Jingdaoese influences in their lives and society, even where this is not apparent. For example, they believe to be followed by the Tegong or even believe they have been instructed by the Tegong to commit acts of arson and murder.

Causes

"Characterise the Jingdaoese Empire as a captive nation of slaves tyrannised by a gaggle of huzzahing mandarins in the thrall of an unending death cult and you wouldn't be exactly wrong."

—Aurangzeb Tokaraizadeh al-Osman, Principal Secretary of State of the Council of Sathrati, in discussion with Lord Daniel Mortis du Grifos, Lord Lieutenant of Amity, concerning the fate of sixteen shipwrecked Jingdaoese fishermen in the second month of 1687.

A variety of mass culture cliches about Jingdao and the Jing exist. Many of these stereotypes were originally developed in the Shirerithian Imperial Republic at the start of the Sxiro-Jingdaoese Confrontation, with the uprising of Kildare from Shirekeep's rule, and its subsequent independence as Apollonian Republic, as main cause. The Jing were blamed for those developments from almost the very moment of their onset. This sentiment, taken together with the prior entanglements of the Tegong with the government of Kildare, which had been previously exposed and prosecuted by the inquisitors in Shireroth's Judex, was strengthened still further after the Apollonian Republic rapidly forswore its earnestly sought sovereignty in order to become part of Jingdao.

Ever since, the Jingdaoese have liked to claim that ruthless politicians abused stereotypes to blame Jingdao for their country's own demise. In certain circles the economical decline, corruption and social inequality, that was said to have been a result of being unable to keep financing its huge military-industrial complex and large armed forces after the War of Lost Brothers, led Shireroth along the path that led to the Kalirion Fracture. Jingdao had seen, and survived, a similar precipitous decline. This had been countered by huge efforts of the USSO. Other observers have however noted that the tensions between the Imperial centre and the largely autonomous periphery had been a perennial problem for Shireroth since the very inception of its state, one that defined its unique system of Shirerithian neofeudalism, and which ensure that it would never achieve a lasting of satisfactory constitutional settlement. The question then becomes less one of asking what factors in Shireroth contributed to "Jingdaophobia" and rather of asking what factors inherent in the Jing were such that they were able to bring together a grand coalition of disparate empires - the Shirerithian-Alexandrian-Natopian Entente (SANE) - for the purpose of opposing Jing imperialism. Indeed, the Entente, which developed into the Raspur Pact as a counter to the perceived hegemonic ambitions of the USSO, attained a level of political, military, and industrial cohesion, such as to ensure that the allied powers retained their unity of purpose and capacity for collective action even as two of its founding members, Alexandria and Shireroth respectively, suffered their demise.

The Jingdaoese narrative maintains that the collapse and fracture of the ancient Shirerithian Empire strengthened a sense of fear among the new, smaller and weaker nation states, as Jingdao had not only outlived the struggle but had seemingly become stronger and more stable under the reign of the Chidao Emperor.

Academic Criticism

Jingdaophobia should not be confused with Critical Jing Studies, a post-structuralist critical approach to studying the historical context of the Jingdaoese empire. Professor Katy Mahon from the Princely University of Pentyre explains: "modern society and power dynamics cannot be understood without recognising and problematising the influence of the vast neo-colonial heritage of the Jingdaoese Empire. Throughout history, the Jing have structurally oppressed vulnerable populations, including the Calbain. To this day, the patriarchal and imperialist structure of Jingdao limits the independent agency of other nations, through rhetorical violence and imposing a profound masculine and oppressive framework of reference."

Critical Jing Studies is also offered in political-science, sociology, anthropology and psychology classes in the People's Academy of Elwynn and in the Royal University of Chryse.