I think western media and some of the younger passionate HK protestors fed off each other in an unfortunate echo chamber for most of the year, with the West feeding a narrative of mass oppression and heroic revolutionary fighters pushing a "free Hong Kong" message.

While there were many legitimate grievances and issues that led to the mass protests last year, the bulk of the HK public never supported a full decoupling from China, but was about keeping their level of autonomy and economic grievances.

Back when the protests were about that, I estimate it had the support of 50-60% of the population of the island. But the movement continued to get more radicalized and violent and lose popular support. Once the extradition law was withdrawn, and goals changed to the 5 demands, support dropped to around 30-40% of the population, which is still significant but becoming a vocal minority.

By early 2020, most locals could see where the trajectory was going. Pushing China for freeing Hong Kong is a non-starter, and only going to result in stronger security measures. The more the US cut HK's special status, the less China has to lose by clamping down control, and the more HK's future and economy would suffer. By the time COVID hit, popular support for further protests, especially as the goals shifted to some form of independence movement, had dropped to around 10-20%. You can see it in the low turnouts of recent protest attempts.

A better question to ask Hong Kongers is not necessarily do they support the protests today, because certainly most people are not on the "side" of the police and CCP either. A better question would be, would you go back to the way HK was 2 years ago if you could undo the last 2 years of protests completely?

Almost everyone in HK would answer in the affirmative. All the protests achieved was a massive loss of their remaining freedoms, loss of economic advantages, and a much deeper recession, which most Hong Kongers can see and feel each day. A lot of HKers privately blame the US for encouraging and continuing to radicalize the young protestors, as if any other outcome was possible here. There were local news interviews with high school aged protestors near the end who believed that US would sail in an aircraft carrier and liberate them.