For several decades the American public has been instilled with an intrinsic fear of and hatred for China. No singular event in this seemingly inevitable march to war is more emblematic of the American public’s warped psyche than the “Chinese Spy Balloon” narrative—perhaps due, in part, to its facial absurdity. The happening eclipses even similarly nonsensical yarns such as widespread TikTok paranoia (see the NSA’s PRISM program), China’s American farmland purchases (Chinese firms account for approximately .5% of all foreign-owned farm and forest land in the U.S.), and the “invasion” of...