War Department Designates CCP-Tied Confucius Institutes As Security Threats

After years of exposés on the Chinese government influence operations through the Confucius Institutes, the Department of War is finally taking action to recognize that not every type of warfare involves weapons and soldiers.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth warned on October 23 that while federal scrutiny spurred closures of Confucius Institutes in colleges and universities across the country that were acting as influence covers and intellectual property thieves for the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP didn’t give up that easily.

The War Department has designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to our national security. https://t.co/bvMTUBwGei

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 23, 2026

Hegseth explained that just as domestic race- and sex-obsessed ideology is difficult to kill, so foreign propaganda operations are difficult to crush permanently. “When I took office, one thing we knew was that the cancer of DEI, it was gonna be difficult to kill here in the Department of War. You see, instead of complying, promoters of this ideology just tried to rebrand it and thought they would be safe. Now, we were onto it, not gonna let that happen on our watch,” he said.

The secretary proudly declared, “We ripped it out of the Department of War, root and branch. We are gender-neutral, color-blind, and merit-based. Now, today, in a similar example, I want to tell you about Confucius Institutes.”

The CCP is America’s number one foreign enemy, and told its people back in 2019 that it was entering a war phase with the U.S. That doesn’t necessarily involve tanks and guns, it means all-out asymmetric warfare.

Hegseth talked about the aggressive university brainwashing, “These Chinese government-backed propaganda cultural programs had infiltrated our nation's universities in almost every state. Now, thankfully, Congress banned them a few years ago, these Confucius Institutes. 
But they came back disguised in new forms, just like DEI does. Just call it a different name. Well, the Department of War has taken action to stop this as well.”

Besides having authority to target influence ops from hostile nations, DOW funds troops’ degrees at many universities. 

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This gives leverage. “We added these sleeper organizations to our list of institutions that threaten our national security,” Hegseth said. “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 is already confident about the results of DOW’s efforts. “So, at the Department of War, within the last two months, we have systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations, using the leverage that we have here at the War Department. Let this be a lesson to any country trying to steal our hard-earned inventions or turn our young people against their own country: we're done with that. No more and never again,” he promised.

“To these universities, I say, just like the Department of War, stay vigilant. Don't allow these influences to come back in. God bless you, God bless our Republic, and God bless all our troops,” Hegseth ended. The CCP can’t openly defy our national security measures now.

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