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The Hong Kong protests are widely supported by many people across the globe. This isn't surprising, since it's easy to sit at home in front of your computer and upvote posts on Facebook, but I reckon it must be a different experience being an actual Hong Konger and having to live there.

The protests must have a profound impact on Hong Kong's social life, businesses, tourism, and, ultimately, economy, with their main index already having dropped by almost 10 % over the past 3 months. On top of that, one needs to recall that the main purpose of the protest was to fight against an extradition bill that has already been declared dead.

With all that in mind, I think it would be very interesting to know what support the protesters actually enjoy by the rest of the Hong Kongers. Even if thousands and thousands of people are marching on the streets, that still leaves millions of people at home not involved with the protest. What are their opinions of it? Do they approve or disapprove? Is there any polling data that can illuminate this fact?

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    These look like a lot of sound assertions. But someone else reading this question will not know off hand if they are true or not unless they have a source. Include links for things you assert as true to help your question.
    – isakbob
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 20:32
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    Also, the extradition bill was indefinitely suspended, but not withdrawn. There is nothing stopping it from being rapidly passed into law if the government wanted. So, I think your assertion that the main purpose of the protests has already been achieved is misguided
    – divibisan
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 22:49

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As a reporter writes in the NY Times:

Independent polling isn’t allowed in China, so judging public attitudes toward Hong Kong is largely guesswork.

The only effort I could find to quantify public opinion in Hong Kong about the protests was a survey of students. Nearly 40% expressed support.

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    I would also add that the opinion of students usually do not reflect that of the larger populace as students tend to be more radical, (not that I am against student movements).
    – xuq01
    Commented Aug 11, 2019 at 4:08
  • @xuq01 I figured this was too obvious to mention. The overall support of the Hong Kong population is almost certainly lower.
    – Brian Z
    Commented Aug 11, 2019 at 11:06
  • -1. The answer isn't bad in itself, but see Miloulou's answer. And if getting a quarter of the total population in the streets doesn't tell you something about popular support, I can only point you to the French Revolution or any number of revolutions after that where a much smaller subset of the population changed what was in place.
    – Denis de Bernardy
    Commented Sep 19, 2019 at 21:02
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On June 16, 2 million people joined a peaceful rally that took many hours for the crowd to move through the rally route which was only a couple of miles long. That's more than one quarter of the total population in Hong Kong in support of the movement. No polls can be clearer than that.

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  • Please add some references and elaborate on your argument. What does a quarter of the population say about the population as a whole? Why can you draw conclusions from that?
    – JJJ ♦
    Commented Sep 19, 2019 at 19:43
  • So support is certainly at least 25% (1/4 of the population) and probably less than 40% (support among students). I call it 32.5% +/-7.5%.
    – Ask About Monica
    Commented Sep 19, 2019 at 21:03
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First of all, I doubt anyone would be capable to conduct a survey in this chaos. So I don't know the exact number. But I do have found some videos in which the public express frustrstion and anger that the protests have affected their daily life.

https://youtu.be/TFcw2aIpQcY

https://youtu.be/ILWsYq97HBg

https://youtu.be/d-Gwkygg5_E

The videos are in Chinese. And the first one has English subtitles. I tried to find the other two with English subtitles but unfortunately I can't find them under any search in English. If I have the time I'll provide a translation.

p.s. Since you said in the first paragraph that you are not surprised about some support the protesters received, I assume you have seen a lot video/news in favor of them, so I didn't put any of that here. Also the ones I find that are pro-independence are actually made by protesters and I don't think they are classified as "not involved in the protests" as mentioned in your question.

update 1: Translation of the third video:

You are doing fake news. You are biased towards them. If we use phones to photo them, you criticise us for doing so. But it's ok for them to photo us? And it's ok for them to yell at us, why is that? Are you or not biased against us? It's ok for them to beat up cops? Isn't that absolutely lawless? Are you in favor of them?

Even if you are filming me now, I know that you'll edit out whatever I have to say. All I can do now is to talk some sense to you, all by myself. I hope you think this through, think about what you are doing. You are just a pawn of those foreigners. Making a mess in Hong Kong won't do any good.

I am an absolute native Hongkonger, I was educated in Hong Kong. Why do you do such things to mess Hong Kong up? If you don't like it you can just leave. (followed by a sentence I don't know how to translate) Don't contradict me. I am only one person, what's for you to be afraid of? (In case not reflected by the transcript, this is said after she was condicted by someone, probably the interviewer or a protester, and was intended to imply the cowardice of that person) I only said a fact. Look at yourselves, absolutely lawless and orderless... (Some protests come near her) Come on, come and take a photo with me! Why the mask? Why the hat? Why the umbrella?

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    I doubt that three videos of interviews count as a valid poll of anything, much less with the effort that both China and the Hong-Kong government are putting in making protesters appear as terrorists on the media.
    – Rekesoft
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 7:17
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    @Rekesoft First of all, like I said, this is not a poll. And I doubt anyone's capable of a poll at this time. And I never said these are all the public opinions out there. The op's question was about public opinion and polling data. Hence providing the op with some videos regarding public opinions is the second best option without any available data. Second, what the government does has nothing to do with the credibility of the videos. They are still public opinions, aren't they?
    – user27595
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 8:13
  • @Rekesoft Also, I could totally say that about some other countries: they are putting in making rioters appear as "righteous independence fighters" on the media. There's no reason really to ignore either side of the story.
    – user27595
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 8:14
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    "They are still public opinions, aren't they?" I don't know. Who has made those videos? Several western media have pointed that chinese broadcasters started a campaign of videos of people badmouthing protesters on their TVs. If you control the channel, you control the news.
    – Rekesoft
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 8:21
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    I'd say at least in the first video, ordinary Hong Kong people yelling at protesters when their transport was blocked seems pretty public to me, regardless of who made the video. There are too many people in it for it to be made up. And just out of curiosity, what campaign are you talking about? What media has reported it?
    – user27595
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 8:47

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