{"id":1332,"date":"2026-10-26T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/26\/china-condemns-us-designation-of-confucius-institutes-as-threat\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T10:00:13","slug":"china-condemns-us-designation-of-confucius-institutes-as-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/26\/china-condemns-us-designation-of-confucius-institutes-as-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"China condemns US designation of Confucius Institutes as threat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"64.235294117647\">\n<p>China accused the United States on Monday of \u201ctargeted smearing\u201d over Washington\u2019s designation of Beijing-funded Confucius Institute cultural centres as national security threats.\n<\/p>\n<p>Washington considers the centres on American university campuses as propaganda tools of the Chinese Communist Party and has imposed funding restrictions on the institutes since 2025.\n<\/p>\n<p>US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday his department had dismantled dozens of similar organisations over two months that had reappeared in disguise, \u201cusing different names\u2026 but with the same mission\u201d and deemed them a threat to national security.\n<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s foreign ministry criticised the move on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe oppose the targeted smearing and stigmatisation of Confucius Institutes,\u201d ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a news conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChina-US educational exchanges and cooperation are beneficial to enhancing mutual understanding between the people of both countries,\u201d he said, adding that such ties \u201cshould not be interfered with or undermined.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"read-also\">\n<header>Related News<\/header>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>China has set up hundreds of Confucius Institutes in more than 150 countries over the last two decades, according to the body that oversees them.<\/p>\n<p>Presented as China\u2019s answer to organisations such as Germany\u2019s Goethe-Institut or the British Council, they offer language lessons and cultural exchange programmes.\n<\/p>\n<p>While Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called them a \u201csymbol of China\u2019s unremitting efforts for world peace and international cooperation,\u201d the cultural centres have faced increasing resistance around the world.\n<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of Confucius Institutes have closed down in several countries following similar accusations of foreign interference, including in France, Sweden, Australia and Canada.\n<\/p>\n<p>AFP\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"14.852589641434\">\n<p> All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contact\">Contact: <a href=\"\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#ff8b979a9a9b968b908dbf8f8a919c979198d19c9092\"> <span class=\"__cf_email__\" data-cfemail=\"2a5e424f4f4e435e45586a5a5f444942444d04494547\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Source: <\/p>\n<div class=\"nSourse\">Punch Newspapers &#8211; Latest News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China accused the United States on Monday of \u201ctargeted smearing\u201d over Washington\u2019s designation of Beijing-funded Confucius Institute cultural centres as national security threats. Washington considers the centres on American university&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}