Hegseth Says Pentagon Dismantled 80 Chinese 'Propaganda Cells' at 30 Universities That Revived Confucius Institutes Under New Names
In a video on X, the Secretary of War said the programs reappeared after Congress cut off funding and were shut down over the past two months. He did not name the schools.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the Pentagon has dismantled 80 Chinese-backed "propaganda cells" at colleges and universities in the past two months, the Washington Examiner reports.
What he said. In a video posted to X, Hegseth said Confucius Institutes, the Chinese government-funded language and culture programs, kept coming back under different names after Congress restricted them. "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," he said. "So, at the Department of War, within the last two months, we have systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations."
The warning. "Let this be a lesson to any country trying to steal our hard-earned inventions or turn our young people against their own country," Hegseth said. "We're done with that. No more, never again." He told the universities to "stay vigilant" and not let the influence return. AFP reports he said the department added the groups to its list of institutions that threaten national security.
The background. Congress cut federal funding to schools hosting Confucius Institutes in 2018, and the Government Accountability Office found that almost all of them then closed, according to the Examiner. China hawks have long warned the programs shape what students hear about China and can open a door to industrial espionage.
He tied the move to his push to strip diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the Pentagon, calling the department "gender-neutral, colorblind, and merit-based."
Note for readers: the numbers come from Hegseth's own video. He did not say which universities hosted the programs, what the groups were called, or how the department shut them down. AFP says the Chinese embassy in Washington had not immediately responded.