The Pentagon has named the Confucius Institutes, China-funded cultural centres at US universities, as a threat to national security.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced it in a video posted on social media on Friday. He said the institutes had been added to the list of organisations that pose a threat to national security.
Washington has long accused the Confucius Institutes of acting as propaganda arms of China, and the United States has taken several steps to limit their work.
Hegseth said the institutes had kept operating under different identities despite restrictions imposed by the US Congress. He called them “sleeper organisations”.
In the video, Hegseth said 80 new propaganda centres had been set up at 30 US universities under new names and different charters, but with the same aims: stealing intellectual property and influencing the thinking of American students.
He said cultural programmes backed by the Chinese government had got into US universities and, despite Congress’s restrictions, had started working again under new identities.
According to the defence secretary, the Pentagon has systematically dismantled every one of these institutions over the past two months.
The news agency Reuters asked the Chinese embassy in Washington for comment, but it did not respond.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report