Majority of Americans Support Sanctions on China If It Aids Russia: Poll

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin enter a hall for talks in the Kremlin in Moscow in this 2019 file photo. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Nearly 75 percent of likely U.S. voters polled believe that President Joe Biden should issue sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) similar to those he has announced against Russia if the CCP chooses to provide aid to Russia.

The poll follows allegations by the U.S. State Department that CCP leadership is considering a request for economic and military aid from Russia following the latter’s mismanagement of its invasion of Ukraine. Both China and Russia have denied the report.

Biden recently met virtually with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and told him that China would face “consequences” if it delivered aid to Russia, although he declined at the time to elaborate on what those consequences would be.

Last week, leadership from across the 30 member nations of the NATO alliance also condemned Russia and formally urged the CCP not to provide such aid.

The Chinese communist regime has repeatedly refused to denounce Russia’s invasion or join multilateral sanctions placed on Moscow by the rest of the international community.

Former Assistant Secretary of State David Stillwell has described the U.S. relationship with China as being in a state of cold war, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Sino–Russian partnership would only deepen in the next decade.

As such, broad support of coercive economic measures against the CCP if it supports the war in Ukraine more directly could prove to be a litmus test for how Americans view the international order going into the 2022 midterm elections.

“China’s close partnership with Russia, which emerged shortly before Russia’s Ukraine invasion, is now putting China in a precarious position,” said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action (CoSA), a nonprofit that aims curb the scope of the federal government, which conducted the poll.

“Americans believe, quite simply, that if the international community is able to obtain proof that the CCP is supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, China should face the same economic consequences being imposed on Russia.”

Such sanctions found support from a broad majority of Americans regardless of party affiliation, but that support was slightly stronger among Republicans.

The poll, exclusively obtained by Epoch Times sister media outlet NTD, was conducted by CoSA in partnership with pollster Trafalgar Group. It elicited responses from more than 1,000 likely voters in the 2022 midterms from across the political spectrum.

In all, 77.8 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Democrats polled were in favor of sanctioning the CCP if it provides aid to Russia. A total of 76.4 percent of independents also agreed.

What type of aid the CCP would need to deliver to Russia to warrant the sanctions wasn’t explicit in the language of the poll.