U.S. requires Confucius Institute center to register as foreign mission

Washington said on Thursday it was requiring the center that manages Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes in the United States to register as a foreign mission, in a further sign of deteriorating bilateral relations. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement, labeled the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in Washington "an entity advancing Beijing's global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms." David Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, told a briefing the dozens of Confucius Institutes in the United States were not being kicked out, but said U.S. universities should take a "hard look" at what they were doing on campus.