The Pentagon has declared China's Confucian Institutes a threat to US national security.

The Pentagon has declared China's Confucian Institutes a threat to US national security.

The US Department of Defense has designated the Confucius Institutes, Chinese language and culture centers, as a threat to US national security.

In a video posted on social media, United States Secretary of Defense Pete Heggest compared these institutions to "propaganda nuclei" and said that dozens of centers of this type have been established in American universities under different names.

He accused these institutions of stealing intellectual property and, in his words, "infiltrating the minds of American students."

Mr Heggest said the US Department of Defense had systematically dismantled these centers.

The Chinese embassy in Washington has not yet commented on this.