The US Defense Department designated Chinese-funded cultural centers on university campuses known as Confucius Institutes as a threat to US national security, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday.

According to him, “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 had “systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations” over the past two months, according to the Guardian.