Surprise: More than three-quarters of 1,000 Singaporean survey respondents indicated they support the protests in Hong Kong against a controversial extradition bill.

This is the result of a survey conducted in June 2019 by Blackbox Research, South China Morning Post reported.

Majority of Singaporeans support the protests

SCMP reported that more than half, or 52 percent of the respondents, said they "somewhat support" the concerns raised by the protesters.

The result was derived from a question that asked respondents if they supported or opposed the concerns raised by Hongkongers over the extradition bill.

Such concerns include the fear of leaving Hongkongers "vulnerable to being targeted by the Chinese authorities for political reasons or inadvertent business offenses".

Some 24.7 percent of respondents said they strongly supported such concerns.

These figures indicated that 767 out of 1,000 Singaporeans polled said that they supported the concerns raised by Hong Kong residents that led to protests.

In contrast, a smaller number of Singaporeans surveyed were less sympathetic to the concerns raised, as 19.5 percent said they somewhat opposed, while only 3.8 percent said they strongly opposed.

Almost three-quarters of respondents see Hong Kong as distinct from China

The survey also asked respondents if they saw Hong Kong as somewhat separate or indistinguishable from the rest of China, SCMP reported.

While a whopping 73.2 percent of respondents agreed that Hong Kong is "still somewhat separate/ semi-autonomous to China", a much lower 26.8 percent believed that Hong Kong is a part of China and is not distinguishable from the mainland.

Hong Kong vs. Singapore

The survey also touched on the rivalry between Hong Kong and Singapore.

Respondents were asked which city has "advanced furthest in terms of positioning itself as a key cosmopolitan Asian hub and global city".

Majority of the respondents, 53.2 percent, gave Singapore as their answer, while people who replied "both" made up 29.2 percent of the total number surveyed.

In contrast, only 7.1 percent of the Singaporean respondents replied that Hong Kong has advanced further than Singapore.

This result likely indicated a local bias.

42.4 percent of Singaporeans not following the protests closely

The survey also asked respondents how closely they were following the development of the protests.

About 42.4 percent replied that they were following the story, but not closely.

Respondents who said they were following the development closely made up a substantial portion, at 32.2 percent.

In contrast, about 19.8 percent of respondents said they were not following the story, but had heard about it.

A much smaller cohort of 5.6 percent said they had not heard about the news at all.

Unclear if survey is reflective of wider population

It is unclear, however, if the survey is reflective of the wider Singaporean population -- or if it can be extrapolated to be so.

The motivations of Singaporeans supporting Hongkongers protesting is also unclear, as it was not hashed out more fully, owing to the limitations of the survey design.

No mention was made of the age group that was sampled, nor did SCMP categorically state that there was a random sampling of survey respondents.

Additionally, SCMP reported that the questions on the Hong Kong protests were attached to a monthly questionnaire.

It is not known what this questionnaire entailed.

Top image from Studio Incendo via Flickr