Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the Department of War has formally designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to U.S. national security.
In a video posted to his official X account, Hegseth detailed how Chinese Communist Party-backed operations that Congress restricted years ago had simply rebranded and continued operating on American campuses.
Hegseth drew a direct parallel to the DEI bureaucracy the War Department has been dismantling.
“When I took office, one thing we knew was that the cancer of DEI, it was going to be difficult to kill here in the Department of War. You see, instead of complying, promoters of this ideology just tried to rebrand it and thought they would be safe,” he said. “Now, today, in a similar example, I want to tell you about Confucius Institutes.”
He continued: “These Chinese government-backed propaganda cultural programs had infiltrated our nation’s universities in almost every state. Now, thankfully, Congress banned them a few years ago, these Confucius Institutes but they came back disguised in new forms just like DEI does. Just call it a different name. Well, the Department of War has taken action to stop this as well. We added these sleeper organizations to our list of institutions that threaten our national security.”
Hegseth stated that investigators uncovered “80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities” operating under different names and charters but with the same mission “to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students.”
Over the past two months, the War Department “systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations” using its funding and contracting leverage.
