I agree with you entirely about using a ball for a kinetic recovery.
"The Chinaman" is a euphemism, for cheap mass produced (in China) garbage. It's a real thing. I retired from an industry that was flooded with reverse engineered garbage that met "USDOT" requirements, meaning the Chinese manufacturer certified those products themselves to meet the DOT requirements. Unilaterally they are/were profoundly unsafe , unreliable and poor quality products. China may be the emerging industrial super power that the globalists want it to be, but they still manufacture huge quantities on garbage.
American companies do in fact manufacture things in China, more frequently they contract manufacture in China. In some cases they have effective quality controls in place to mitigate material substitutions and manufacturing short cuts. In many more they do not. Third party material certification, third party quality testing are the exception not the rule.
For the sake of honesty and transparency, I DO buy some products manufactured in China, very few consumers who do not. But they are absolutely not my first stop.
Nationalist pride? You're damn right, I am proud of America, proud of Americas industrial might, and proud of Americans, and if you don't like that, well .....
China, and by proxy the Chinese are not in any way our friends or our allies, but I digress.
Don't use trailer balls as recovery points for kinetic recoveries, yes.