China opposes US "smearing and stigmatisation" of Confucius Institutes, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after the US Defense Department designated the Chinese-funded cultural centres on university campuses as a threat to US national security on Friday.
Educational exchanges between China and the US are mutually beneficial and help deepen mutual understanding, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press briefing on Monday when asked about the US designation.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday alleged that Confucius Institutes were operating in disguise at US universities and that the Pentagon had added them to its listof institutions that threaten US national security.
"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 Defense Department over the past two months has "systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations," he said.
China's official Xinhua news agency on Sunday called the national security threat label "an absurd overreach, exposing some US politicians' warped threat perceptions and their dangerous political calculus of stoking anti-China sentiment ahead of the midterm elections."
Washington has long accused Confucius Institutes of being Chinese propaganda tools and has taken steps to crack down on them.