The so-called U.S. national security is truly fragile—now even Confucius Institutes are deemed a "threat."
U.S. national security, as currently defined, appears exceptionally vulnerable: a language and cultural exchange program like the Confucius Institute is now considered a danger to American interests.
On the 23rd, U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth announced that the Pentagon has classified Confucius Institutes as a threat to national security, accusing China of using them to "steal intellectual property" and "infiltrate students' minds."
To be candid, this allegation strains credibility. If a language and cultural institution can provoke such alarm within the Pentagon, it suggests that America’s concept of national security may be more akin to paper than substance.
Even more absurdly, if language instruction and cultural exchange qualify as "ideological infiltration" under Secretary Hegseth’s logic, then no nation engages in ideological export more systematically than the United States itself—through Hollywood films, social media platforms, and numerous government-funded non-governmental organizations.
Moreover, in recent years, perceptions of China in the United States have increasingly reflected ignorance. Washington now struggles to identify a single seasoned China expert, instead relying on figures like Glen G. D. Chao, whose works fall into the realm of popular fiction rather than serious scholarship. At root, this reflects a growing ideological conservatism in the U.S., one that resists meaningful engagement with China.
This self-imposed isolation is itself a sign of anxiety: precisely because the United States recognizes its own competitive limitations, it seeks to close doors. Yet the tighter the doors are shut, the greater the likelihood of misjudgment toward China—and ultimately, the more distorted the United States’ own capacity for objective assessment becomes.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1879908681073674/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.