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Saying a vast majority hated the protests seems like a too strong of a statement. Here are some sources which reports 57% supported [1] and 58.3% supported [2]. It has also been estimated that 36.4% had attended a demonstration against it in August 2019, and a year later 45.6% [3].

This paper directly contradicts your claim it was mainly due to housing [4].

> Our empirical findings suggested that the systematic threat concerning the erosion of the city's values and institutions imposed by the extradition bill was a primary cause of the unprecedented mobilization.

[1]https://www.investing.com/news/world-news/exclusive-hong-kon...

[2]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-east-asia...

[3]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...

[4]https://www.proquest.com/docview/2714819043

(On my phone, so some sources are secondary sources).

A poll conducted for Reuters by an institute whose ex-CEO has historically expressed anti-Beijing and HK pro-succession views and has since moved to UK.[1] Yea, no bias there.

  Reuters is a British news agency wholly owned by Thomson Reuters[0]

Even in that survey, you can clearly see that the locals did not want all the things the protestors/western media wanted.

  Nevertheless, only 17% expressed support for seeking independence from China, and 20% were opposed to "the current path of one country, two systems" - the arrangement under which Hong Kong is governed by Beijing.

  Many protesters say Beijing has used its authority under the system to gradually undermine certain freedoms - such as an independent judiciary and freedom of speech - that are supposed to be guaranteed at least until 2047 under the arrangement.

  The results of the survey, involving 1,021 people and conducted from Dec. 17-20, also showed a large plurality of respondents mainly blamed the Hong Kong government for the crisis, the worst civil unrest to hit the city in decades, rather than the central government in Beijing.

  This paper directly contradicts your claim it was mainly due to housing [4].

Summarize it? Having lived in Hong Kong and talked to many locals, had local friends, talked to young HKers, no one could convince me that housing wasn't the biggest reason for the pent up frustration that ultimately led to the protests.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chung_Kim-wah

Normally numbers are countered with numbers that back up your position, not personal anecdotes and attacks on source credibility.

I mean, the numbers speak for themselves right? Only 37% participated in any demonstration - likely only the non-violent ones in the beginning.

His source doesn't actually disprove what I said - that most locals hated the protests.

37% participating in demonstrations implies that for your statement to hold true, around 80% of all the remaining people who did not participate in a demonstration would’ve had to hate the protests. I find it somewhat implausible that less than 20% of the people who didn’t go to a demonstration had either positive or somewhat neutral feelings on the matter. Surely the population of Hong Kong is not this neatly divided between two extremes?

There is a difference between demonstrations and violent protests. The protests lasted nearly a year.

Lastly, let's just say that the survey source is highly suspect. It's commissioned by a British news agency with an institute whose CEO has been accused for treason and has expressed pro-succession views and has since been exiled to the UK.

> Lastly, let's just say that the survey source is highly suspect. It's commissioned by a British news agency with an institute whose CEO has been accused for treason and has expressed pro-succession views and has since been exiled to the UK.

Now you mistake [3] for [1] too? [3] is a peer reviewed paper (just like [2]), and neither [2] nor [3] has anything to do with Reuters (the British news agency you refer to).

Let me link [3] again for you:

[3]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...

edit:

Since max depth I'll just reply here (since you clearly also argue in bad faith). You claimed the paper had relation to a British news agency, it doesn't. So factually you are wrong, end of story.

"Peer reviewed". My goodness.

No, I'm not mistaken.

Regardless, how was your experience living in HK in 2019? Hopefully you've talked to many locals in cantonese?

Okay use my 2nd source then? Data source:

> The survey data reported in this article were collected via a telephone survey conducted by a research centre at a university in Hong Kong from May to June 2020.

And they also quote this paper with very similar results

> Chung, Ting-Yiu Robert, Pang, Ka-Lai Karie, Lee, Wing-Yi Winnie, and Edward, Chit-Fai, comp. 2020. Survey on Hong Kong People’s Views Regarding the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement (Round 3). Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute. July 10. Accessed March 19, 2025.

I summarized it with a quote? What do you want? Alternatively/also read 2nd source, which also discuss it, and again they say economic/housing was a factor, but not the largest like you claimed.

  Okay use my 2nd source then? Data source:

That's the Reuters one.

  I summarized it with a quote? What do you want? Alternatively/also read 2nd source, which also discuss it, and again they say economic/housing was a factor, but not the largest like you claimed.

Why did they say housing wasn't a reason or the main reason for the youth that continued the year long violent protests?

What is Reuters about the data source being a phone survey conducted by a research centre at a university in Hong Kong? (Or the 2nd source they linked to which I quoted above)?

They collected the data FOR Reuters.

I guess you didn’t check your own source.

Source? And just so we are clear, are you suggesting academic malpractice, that the university intentionally designed it to be biased?

The source is literally in your link. Read it carefully.

  residents polled in a survey conducted **for Reuters** by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute

It's literally commission by Reuters, a British news agency. It isn't academic malpractice because the institute was no longer part of HKU. Further more, their chief executive was accused of treason and has historically expressed anti-Beijing, pro-succession ideas. Clearly this institution was not going to be unbiased.

Anyways, how was your experience living in Hong Kong in 2019?

Polls use sampling to avoid the sort of social bias suggested by your question.

Ask the right person, like someone who protested, and they could tell you that literally everyone supports the protests. Why, everyone they know participated in at least one, and most of them went to many of them!

Regardless, I'm not sure why injustice should be subject to a popular referendum. If greater than 50% of polled North Koreans praise their current political leadership, does that make their current leadership good?

Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities, and I was there in 2019 as it happens, though not for the full year. I knew people who participated in protests, and people who sniffed and said they were stupid, although when pressed, that was more out of a belief (correct, it turns out) that they would be ineffective, and were dangerous to participate in.

It is still true that something of value has been lost, while it remains a fantastic city. It is still true that multiple political prisoners are being held on charges most of us would identify as unjust.

It is also true that protesters were upset about many varied things, including the outrageous cost of housing. But it's not clear what you're trying to say with that and silly arguing about polling sources. That Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, and many others deserve their imprisonment? That nothing of value has been lost as China has suppressed dissent and the free press in Hong Kong?

They absolutely deserved imprisonment. They broke laws and went to foreign countries for aid.

Imagine if Hawaii tried advocated for succession and went to China for help. The US isn't going to do anything? Come on. This double standard is ridiculous.

By the way, the protests lasted for an entire year before it ended. Clearly China gave them a lot of leeway. But in the end, if you tried to get foreign governments to interfere, you better have a good plan.

This is from 1st link, not 2nd like I said?

> residents polled in a survey conducted *for Reuters* by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute

You managed to mistake [1] with [2] three times, really?

The University of Cambridge, UK source is the 2nd one right?

What about it makes you think that it's right and not the other sources citing housing? How much do you know about the HK housing situation in 2014-2019?

  The survey data reported in this article were collected via a telephone survey conducted by a research centre at a university in Hong Kong from May to June 2020.

What survey was this?

Yes which says nothing about Reuter like you wrote 3 times?

edit:

I'll just reply here since max depth. You made a claim, that [2] has relation to Reuters. It doesn't, end of story.

Huh? I'm just wondering why you even linked me to a source that is commissioned by a British news agency done by an institution that has historically been pro-sucession. And then another one by authors at The China Quarterly which has clearly been anti-China historically.

Can we at least check biases first?

I'm still looking for how your life was living in HK in 2019. Or are you just basing this purely on western media and institutions, like I mentioned in the OP?

I was there too.

It's just absolutely false that "a vast majority of the locals hated the protests". See for example the contemporaneous polling done by Reuters below - 59% of the population supported the protests at the end of 2019 and 30% had participated [1]. There was also a District Council election in November 2019 in which the establishment (pro-government) parties were utterly wiped out [2].

To your second point, HK's housing situation is an unmitigated disaster that undoubtedly contributed to the overall atmosphere of discontent with the government, but it was not a proximate cause of the protests.

To your third point, merely going to a foreign government and asking them to put pressure on your home government would not remotely reach the bar for a treason conviction in the U.S. This idea that what Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai did would be considered sedition or treason in Western democracies is something that everyone in China seems to "know" that just isn't so.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-hong-kongers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_local_elections

>put pressure on your home government

They literally petitioned US gov to sanction HK politicians, and drew up lists, which US did. That's treasonous/seditious bullet to the back of the head activity.

Also let's not pretend Reuters / western media polling on HK under Mike Pompeo legitimate. Lets not pretend any west reporting on HK was/is legitimate.

> That's treasonous/seditious bullet to the back of the head activity.

Evidence please. You're unintentionally illustrating my point here.

> Also let's not pretend Reuters / western media polling on HK under Mike Pompeo legitimate

The polling was conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute at the University of Hong Kong. Do you think Mike Pompeo infiltrated the District Council elections too?

Evidence of what? That asking foreign power / geopolitical competitor to sanction domestic politicians is not treasonous? You're unintentionally failing an IQ test here.

>infiltrated ... too

Yes? This isn't complicated, there's reason lack of NSL turned HK into one of the largest western intelligence hubs in Asian, targeting mainland. HK is thoroughly infiltrated / influenced, full of compradors who thought they had immunity because PRC too magnanimous to ram NSL down their throats like any other sane country.

I was at the 2019 Tiananmen Square vigil that kick started the protests.

Don't mistake the local population being sympathetic to some of the protester's messages over supporting the protests. When the protestors became disruptive and violent, I distinctly remembered most locals did not want the protests to continue anymore.

  See for example the contemporaneous polling done by Reuters below - 59% of the population supported the protests at the end of 2019 and 30% had participated [1].

I looked into this source.

First, it was commissioned by Reuters, a news agency based in UK.

  polled in a survey conducted for Reuters by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute

Second, Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute had a CEO who was pro-succession, anti-Beijing views and has since been exiled to UK.

Personally, I wouldn't call this survey unbiased.

We don’t have to rely on polling as the 2019 district elections happened in HK that November and the message was extremely clear that the bulk of the population was pro-protestors and anti-the HK government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_local_elections

> Nearly three million people voted, equivalent to 71 per cent of registered voters, an unprecedented turnout in the electoral history of Hong Kong. The election was widely viewed as a de facto referendum on the concurrent anti-extradition protests.[3]

> All pro-Beijing parties suffered major setbacks and losses, including the flagship pro-Beijing party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), which received its largest defeat in history, losing 96 seats. Executive Councillor Regina Ip's New People's Party failed to obtain a single seat, and was ousted from all District Councils as a result.[4][5] Dozens of prominent pro-Beijing heavyweights lost their campaigns for re-election, including Junius Ho, a controversial anti-protest figure who had expressed support for the triads behind the mob attack in Yuen Long on 21 July.[4][5]

> In contrast, the pro-democracy camp in conjunction with the localist camp achieved its biggest landslide victory in the history of Hong Kong, gaining absolute majority in votes and electoral seats in all of the 18 District Councils and tripling their seats from around 124 to about 388.

People aren't property. Hong Kong belongs to Hong Kong people. If you ask a typical Chinese people to explain why Hong Kong or Taiwan belong to China, they will never at any point consider the will of the born and raised there. They will instead blabber on about history how they used to belong to "them", where the delusion of identity leads them to believe something of the past once belonging to someone else, now belongs to them because of this arbitrary "us" and "china". They have no capacity to consider the living breathing humans alive in the current era and attempt to derive from first principles what is best for everyone.

No one said people are property. Hong Kong people still enjoy disproportionally high quality of life compared to Mainland Chinese people. In fact, they are ranked #14 world wide in GDP PPP per capita.[0]

The biggest reason for this is because of China. Hong Kong acts as a financial hub for business between China and the outside world.

Can we stop pretending like Hong Kong people are oppressed?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

Land/soil is in fact, property, and HK land belongs to PRC not HKers. HK belongs to all Chinese of which HKers are <1%. HKers simply got privileged arrangement / exclusive access enforced by CCP via limited freedom of movement from mainland and got wealthy off it, but they went full retarded and fucked it up by being treasonous.

> used to belong to "them"

Not "used" to, legally belongs to PRC/China, under Westphalia / UN law, HK belongs to PRC, TW belongs to One China territory. Liberal World Order idiots have no conception that international law matters when it favors PRC. There is no need to reach for muh history copium when it's plain literal current legal international order is built around HK (and Tibet and XJ) legally belonging to PRC, and TW/PRC part of One China both at UN and PRC/ROC constitutional level.

And it is in fact pieces of paper that determines ownership not living breathing humans who come and go. Ultimately self determination doesn't (and shouldn't) factor into sovereignty, but if it just so happens in China's case, the mandate overwhelming favors PRC who has 98% of consensus. What is best for everyone is 1400m mainlanders vs 40m greater China.

> First, the vast majority of the locals hated the protests and didn't support them. This isn't reported by the western media. The media reported it as all HK people were being wronged.

Not everyone is an American, and that's fine. Asians--on average--just care more that things "just work" than having more freedom to faff around. It's like Apple users versus Linux users. The Chinese government is a good government for the things that most Chinese people actually care about: economic development, building infrastructure, keeping trains running, etc. At the end of the day, most Chinese people in Hong Kong aren't missing the political freedoms that Americans would miss in their shoes, and value the things they do have that the government is good at.

The way you've talked about the average Asian it seems like you're describing a cultural predisposition but representing it as a racial one.

And it's easy to see why HK citizens would have cultural preferences towards independent legal systems and political freedom. Their 'being Asian' is independent of this.

The housing prices are sky high in HK because of artificial zoning and regulations, not because of geographical limitations. There are vast empty spaces that can be used for housing in HK, but the elites/politicians wouldn’t allow buildings in those areas because that would result in a collapse of real estate values and ultimately the wealth of elites.

What HK need is politicians that works for people and have a spine to go against the elites

Yes, exactly. See this report: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3030209...

Basically, it was pent up frustration from the youth over housing controlled by Hong Kong's property tycoons. The extradition law was just the final trigger.

A lot of Chinese do have a policy of "as long as we're comfortable (economically, etc), we'll let the government do whatever they want.", some justifying it by saying "society needs their government to be a strict parent".

It does seem most widespread revolutions only happen when the discomfort grows big enough (as the saying (1) goes, "civilisation is n missed meals away from anarchy" (n = a number below 10, I thought 3, but it's 9)).

It's interesting though, the CCP does chicken out. The last time that I remember this happening is when enough citizens in Beijing protested against their prison-like Covid restrictions, that they relaxed it within a day or two.

Same thing with Russians and the war: 2). Heck, Americans are anguishing but most are too comfortable/don't want to go through the discomfort to actually do anything against the rising fascism in their country.

1) https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/05/02/nine-meals/

2) https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/06/war-of-the-worl...

A lot of Americans do have a policy of "as long as we're comfortable (economically, etc), we'll let the government do whatever they want.", some justifying it by saying "they're doing it for the Middle Eastern people's freedom!"

Or to spread democracy across the world and to protect human rights…

Feels like you wrote this without reading my comment to the end, where I do point out with Americans it's not much different.

Well, sorry but not really sorry for that. We all know that literature aka the art of conveying something regardless of what that thing is is an art. We all need to take responsibility for not only what we say but also how we say it.

Sorry for your non-existant attention span.

(Not actually sorry)

> A lot of Chinese do have a policy of "as long as we're comfortable (economically, etc), we'll let the government do whatever they want.", some justifying it by saying "society needs their government to be a strict parent".

On a spectrum from like Appalachians at one end to the CCP on the other, most societies in the world are closer to the Chinese end of the spectrum. Appalachians will forgo civilization to avoid government. But most people in the world do want government to be a strict parent and maintain order and a well-functioning society. This is something that Americans completely do not understand.

> the vast majority of the locals hated the protests and didn't support them

Totally false

It's well reported matter public record that hundreds of thousands people protested, daily. And it's trivial to find polling that showed that about two thirds of Hong Kongers supported the protests, while only a third took your point of view.

Just because it is convenient for the CCP to coerce "confessions" about CIA involvement, and it's convenient for willing accomplices to their dishonest and cruel misrule to pretend that this is relevant, no one else needs to take this seriously.

Reported by who? The famously neutral The Guardian?

There were large participation in non-violent protests in the beginning.

By the time it got violent, it was almost all just students and the youth protesting. It lasted for almost an entire year.

> Hong Kong belongs to China if you forgot

If that's not a healthy attitude to take towards a territorial possession, I don't know what is.

ICE is so healthy…

You're right. Violent authoritarian thugs are bad. There should be systems in place to sweep them away. Ideally, through peaceful means.

I'd be interested to see what has been implemented with regard to this under the stewardship of the CCP.

China belongs to Taiwan if you want to go down that route.