Pentagon designates Confucius Institutes a US national security threat
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday that the Pentagon has designated Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes a threat to US national security, alleging 80 successor "propaganda cells" at 30 universities were "systematically dismantled".
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has designated Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes a threat to US national security, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday (Oct 23) in a video posted on social media.
The institutes are Chinese-funded cultural centres on US university campuses that Washington has long accused of being propaganda tools for Beijing, and the Defence Department has now added them to its list of institutions deemed to threaten American national security (CNA; Reuters via Free Malaysia Today).
Hegseth alleged that 80 successor organisations had sprung up across 30 universities “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 the Defence Department had over the past two months “systematically dismantled every single one of these organisations”, according to the Reuters report carried by the Straits Times.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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