The War Department has designated Confucius Institutes a threat to national security, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Friday in a video posted on X.
“Chinese government-backed propaganda cultural programs” like Confucius Institutes had infiltrated universities in almost every state, he said, before Congress banned such institutes years ago, but they returned under different names.
“It turns out that 80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities had popped up using different names and different charters but with the same mission: to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students,” Hegseth said.
The department systematically dismantled each one within the past two months, he said. The move followed university audits completed earlier this month.
The Department of War reported on Oct. 19 that security reviews it ordered at 30 U.S. universities produced more than 80 actions to end or limit research partnerships flagged as potential risks to national security.
Every institution completed the required reviews and resolved the identified ties, the department said. The audits, launched in August, responded to worries that foreign partners could gain access to research supported by American taxpayers.
The reviews covered entities on the restricted list created under Section 1286 of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, as well as groups linked to rebranded Confucius Institutes.
In July, the Pentagon updated that list to name 130 institutions across China, Russia, and Iran, with roughly 70 percent located in China.
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, praised the outcome.
“Americans’ tax dollars should never subsidize China’s military ambitions and our universities must do more to protect taxpayer-funded research,” he said in an Oct. 19 statement.
Confucius Institutes first appeared on U.S. campuses in 2004 and eventually numbered more than 100. Many later closed, driven in part by a provision in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that cut off Pentagon funding to universities hosting the centers.
The institutes are funded and operated by Hanban, or the Office of Chinese Language Council International, an office within China’s Ministry of Education.
Rachelle Peterson, policy director at the National Association of Scholars, told The Epoch Times in an email that the institutes bring Chinese government censorship into American colleges and conflict with the free inquiry universities are meant to protect.
The Chinese Communist Party’s then-propaganda chief Li Changchun in 2009 described Confucius Institutes as “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.”
On Aug. 13, 2020, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a “foreign mission” of the People’s Republic of China under the Foreign Missions Act.
The fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act went further, barring Department of War funding to universities that hosted Chinese government-supported Confucius Institutes unless they obtained a waiver. The restrictions largely shut the program down in the United States, dropping the number from a 2017 peak of 118 to fewer than five by 2023.
The China Exposure Index, a new index that tracks countries’ exposure to Chinese influence, ranked the United States fourth worldwide in 2025. Confucius Institutes are one of the factors the index uses to gauge Beijing’s potential reach.
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