Kathmandu [Nepal], October 24 – The US Department of Defense has classified China-backed Confucius Institutes operating at university campuses as threats to national security, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday.
In a video posted on social media, Hegseth said the Pentagon had added the institutes to its list of organisations considered security threats.
Hegseth claimed that some institutes had continued operating under different names despite congressional restrictions, describing them as “sleeper organisations”.
He said 80 new centres had been established under different names and statutes across 30 universities, alleging that their objectives included intellectual property theft and influencing the thinking of American students.
Hegseth also accused China-backed cultural programmes of penetrating US universities and re-emerging in new forms despite restrictions imposed by Congress.
He said the Pentagon had systematically dismantled the organisations over the past two months.
Confucius Institutes were established to promote Chinese language and culture abroad, but their operations have faced scrutiny in the United States over concerns about Beijing’s influence on academic institutions.
