The U.S. Defense Department has designated China’s Confucius Institutes as a threat to U.S. national security, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday, in the sharpest American move yet against the Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses.
The institutes began as Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses, offering language and cultural programming. Over time, Washington came to see them differently.
In a social media video, Hegseth said 80 “propaganda cells” at 30 universities had popped up under new names. He accused them of seeking “to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students.”
The Pentagon says it has “systematically dismantled every single one” of the operations over the past two months.
Washington has long accused the centers of being Chinese propaganda tools. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The story was reported by Jasper Ward and Ismail Shakil for Reuters.
Confucius institutes operating under new names
Hegseth’s central claim is that the confucius institutes did not disappear when universities closed them. Instead, he said, 80 operations resurfaced under different names at 30 universities.
The numbers describe a wide footprint. Eighty operations at 30 universities, all dismantled in two months, is the scale the Pentagon claims for an effort it had been carrying out quietly.
The renaming claim matters because it suggests the closures did not end the presence. If the centers simply rebranded, the underlying activity continued under a different label.
Hegseth made the announcement in a video posted to social media rather than through a Pentagon briefing, putting the message directly before the public.
Hegseth made the announcement in a video posted to social media rather than through a Pentagon briefing, putting the designation directly before the public.
Confucius institutes and the spying accusations
The accusations go beyond cultural influence. Hegseth accused the centers of seeking to steal intellectual property, the most serious charge leveled against them.
The intellectual property accusation is the sharper of the two charges. It frames the institutes not as cultural programs but as collection operations aimed at American research. If taken at face value, the charge would put language and cultural centers in the same category as espionage threats.
The second charge, infiltrating the minds of American students, goes to influence rather than espionage. It accuses the centers of shaping how young Americans think about China. That claim reaches beyond any single campus program and into the wider debate over foreign influence in American education.
The confucius institutes have faced American suspicion for years. U.S. officials have described them as propaganda outlets, and many universities have shut their campus institutes under political pressure.
The new designation formalizes Washington’s view of the confucius institutes inside the Defense Department. It takes a long-running accusation and turns it into an official security finding.
The Pentagon says the dismantling unfolded over the past two months, a quiet operation that preceded Friday’s public announcement.
What the confucius institutes designation changes
The designation escalates a multi-agency U.S. campaign against the cultural centers. With the Pentagon now on record, the pressure grows on any university still hosting the renamed operations.
The designation follows years of American pressure on universities to close the institutes. Many campuses have already shut their programs, and the confucius institutes now carry a formal national security designation from the Pentagon.
What the designation changes in practice is not yet clear from the announcement. Hegseth described the dismantling as complete, which suggests the move is as much a warning as an operational step.
The confucius institutes designation also signals that the administration views campus cultural programs as part of the broader contest with China over technology and influence.
For the universities involved, the Pentagon’s claim that the operations have been “systematically dismantled” closes one chapter. Whether new versions appear under yet another name is the question the designation leaves hanging.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.