Ukraine war: most Chinese believe backing Russia is in their national interest, says US think tank

Name: Russia strikes Mariupol steel plant that has become Ukraine’s stronghold in strategic city
Uploaded: 2022-04-20T13:00:25.000Z
Duration: 1 min 35 s
Description: Russia strikes Mariupol steel plant that has become Ukraine’s stronghold in strategic city

US-China Perception Monitor received over 4,800 responses to survey seeking opinions on support for Russia and China’s best course of action in the conflict

Analysts looked at whether Chinese respondents’ demographics, education and media diet made them more likely to believe a biolab conspiracy theory

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An American think tank says its survey of Chinese internet users sheds light on complex public opinion in China, where the media is heavily controlled by the states. Photo: Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Laura Zhou

Published: 9:00pm, 20 Apr 2022Updated: 9:36pm, 20 Apr 2022

People in China generally believe supporting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine is in China’s best interest, according to a survey by an American think tank.

And, after assessing the age, gender, education, income and media diet of the respondents, analysts with the US-China Perception Monitor, a programme under the Carter Centre, found that a higher education and a greater exposure to national state media and social media were associated with a higher level of support for actions favouring Russia.

The poll relating to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine was conducted in the Chinese language between March 28 and April 5. The think tank received 4,886 complete responses from Chinese internet users.

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Russia strikes Mariupol steel plant that has become Ukraine’s stronghold in strategic city

Among them, 75 per cent of respondents indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that supporting Russia in the conflict was in China’s national interest, according to the report published on the US-China Perception Monitor website on Tuesday.

Respondents were asked what they considered China’s best course of action relating to the Ukraine war, but only some surveyed were given mediation as an option. Of those, 58 per cent believed negotiating peace in Ukraine was in the best interest of China, followed by respondents in favour of giving moral support to Russia (21 per cent), providing weapons to Russia (8 per cent), offering weapons to Ukraine (7 per cent) and condemning Russia’s invasion (5 per cent).

But when respondents were not given mediation as a possible response, nearly 60 per cent of respondents supported China offering moral to support to Russia, and 16 per cent of respondents supported providing weapons to Russia, just ahead of the 13 per cent in favour of China condemning the Russian invasion in what would be a departure from China’s current position.

“Since the option to ‘Mediate an end to the conflict’ is not mutually exclusive with the other options provided, we do not analyse them further. However, it is evident that most respondents believe China’s best course of action is to negotiate peace,” the survey analysts wrote on the US-China Perception Monitor website.

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