Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Chinese-funded campus centers operated under new names at 30 universities and that the Pentagon dismantled 80 such groups.
The US Defense Department has added Confucius Institutes, Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses, to its list of institutions threatening national security, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on October 23. The designation extends Washington’s longstanding campaign against the centers, which US officials have accused of spreading Chinese propaganda.
Universities hosting Confucius Institutes already faced restrictions on Pentagon funding. An existing defense contracting rule bars contract awards to those institutions. The authority to grant exceptions to the funding prohibition expired on October 1, 2026, and previously granted exceptions ceased to apply from that date. Those restrictions predate Hegseth’s announcement.
In a video posted on social media, Hegseth alleged that 80 successor organizations had appeared across 30 US universities under different names and charters. He accused the groups of seeking to steal intellectual property and influence American students, and said the Defense Department had “systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations” over the preceding two months.
The new designation’s additional legal consequences and the specifics substantiating the alleged theft remain unclear. China’s embassy in Washington had not immediately responded to a request for comment, the Guardian reported.
Separately, DefenseScoop reported on October 19 that the Pentagon had announced results of research-security audits covering 30 universities. Those audits concerned the Section 1286 list, a statutory list of foreign organizations considered security risks. Pentagon rules prohibit funding for fundamental research involving collaboration with organizations on that list.
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