I have always thought that the standard translation of kanji is "chinese characters", and I have always said "chinese characters" for kanji. But at the same time, I have never been comfortable with this translation. The reason is that to someone who knows nothing about Japanese, "chinese characters" just mean chinese characters (中国文字), as cheshire san pointed out. (BTW, "chinese characters" has the stress on "chinese", while chinese characters (中国の文字) has the stress on "characters", I think. So their pronunciations are slightly different.)
But as Hiro Sasaki san said, it is more natural to speak of "chinese characters" when it is understood that "chinese characters" means kanji.
So it would be best to choose a different expression depending on who you talk to. For example, "characters of chinese origin" to someone who knows nothing about Japanese, "chinese characters" to someone who knows something about Japanese, and kanji to someone who knows Japanese fairly well.
However, in an open forum like this, the choice may not be so easy. Maybe "chinese characters" with quotation marks to indicate that it is different from 中国の文字?