Hegseth Says the Pentagon Dismantled 80 Rebranded Confucius Institute Groups

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a video posted to X on Friday, Oct. 23, that the Pentagon has designated Confucius Institutes a threat to American national security. He also said the department dismantled 80 rebranded groups at 30 universities over the past two months. Hegseth styles himself Secretary of War, and the department calls itself the War Department.

"The War Department has designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to our national security," Hegseth wrote in his post on X, which had drawn roughly 1.7 million views. The numbers in the video are his own claims, and the outlets quoted here transcribed it; the video itself was not available for review.

If his account holds, it would mean institutes that Congress banned or restricted years ago came back under new names. No independent verification of the 80 groups, the 30 universities or the dismantling turned up in the reporting reviewed for this story, and no list of affected schools has been published in the material reviewed.

What Hegseth Says Happened

Reuters reported that the Pentagon added the institutes to its list of institutions that threaten U.S. national security. The wire service, which identifies Hegseth as Defense Secretary, quoted him in the video:

"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 every single one of these organizations," according to Reuters. The Washington Examiner also reported that the groups had been dismantled over the past two months, and that Congress had banned or restricted the institutes years ago and that Hegseth says they returned under new names and charters.

Only the Washington Examiner article was read in full for this story. The Reuters and Epoch Times accounts were reviewed only in search snippets, so the attributions to them rest on partial text.

The Epoch Times reported that Hegseth said the groups had infiltrated universities "in almost every state." According to the snippet, the move followed university audits completed earlier in October, covering entities on the Section 1286 list, which dates to the fiscal 2019 defense authorization law, as well as groups linked to rebranded Confucius Institutes. The same snippet said the Pentagon updated that list in July to 130 institutions across China, Russia and Iran, about 70 percent of them in China. Those audit and list details do not appear in the Reuters or Washington Examiner accounts, and the link between the designation and the Section 1286 list is unverified.

The Background

Confucius Institutes were founded in 2004. Beijing funds them to teach Chinese, according to a TRT World snippet. Washington has long called them propaganda tools, Reuters noted. TRT World also reported that Congress restricted funding to universities that host them, and the notes place the Section 1286 and defense-bill restrictions in 2018 and 2019.

Hegseth compared the groups to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which he called a "cancer" that was rebranded rather than removed, according to blabber.buzz, which cited the Gateway Pundit. That account is secondhand.

What Remains Unclear

Everything in the announcement comes from Hegseth's own video. No independent verification of the 80 groups, the 30 universities or the dismantling turned up in the reporting reviewed. No list of the affected universities or groups had been published in what was seen.

The word "dismantled" is undefined. It is unclear whether the groups were closed, defunded, or only removed from a list. The legal effect of the "designation" is also unclear, and no Federal Register notice or Pentagon release turned up in the material reviewed. The Washington Examiner's headline described the groups as "sleeper organizations," a phrase not seen quoted from Hegseth.

Responses from the Chinese government, universities or Congress were not found in the material reviewed.

What Comes Next

The department has not announced further steps. The open questions are which universities were involved, which groups were dismantled, and what exactly happened to them. The Pentagon's written designation, reactions from the Chinese embassy and from universities, and any congressional follow-up would help answer them.