Pentagon designates Confucius Institutes a national security threat

The US Department of War has designated the Confucius Institutes, the China-funded cultural centres on university campuses, a threat to the country’s national security. “The Department of War has designated Confucius Institutes a threat to our national security,” the department announced on X on Friday, October 23, with a video of Secretary Pete Hegseth.

In the video, Hegseth claims the institutes kept operating covertly at American universities. “80 new propaganda cells at 30 universities” had sprung up, he said, “with different names and different charters”, all with the same mission: stealing intellectual property and influencing American students.

“Systematic dismantling” within two months

The secretary said his department had worked for the past two months to shut these organisations down and had “systematically dismantled every one of them”. China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Confucius Institutes are funded by Beijing to teach Chinese language and culture, but for years they have been accused in the United States of presenting only the view of the communist government. Congress has already restricted funding to universities that host them. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), their number on American campuses fell from more than 100 to 27 in 2021 and to five in 2023.

Pentagon-funded research in the crosshairs

In August the department ordered research security audits at 30 academic institutions, including, by its own announcement, “organisations affiliated with rebranded Confucius Institutes”. The aim was to protect research funded by American taxpayers from “unauthorised technology transfer, intellectual property theft and exploitation by adversaries”. “The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that endanger our national security,” said Under Secretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. The Pentagon’s list of problematic entities includes 130 organisations from China, Russia and Iran, from electronic measurement laboratories to scientific research centres.

The move is part of Washington’s broader pressure on Beijing, which extends from university campuses to space and to the protection of sensitive technologies.