Meanwhile, the airline is suffering. Cathay’s shares, traded on the Hong Kong exchange, plunged in the days following China’s edict (though they have since recouped the losses). Beijing is egging on the slide. China’s largest state-owned bank downgraded Cathay’s stock to a “strong sell” last week. Similarly, MTR Corporation, which operates Hong Kong’s subway system, faced intense criticism in Chinese state media for what was deemed too soft an attitude toward protesters in its train stations. Wilting in the spotlight, MTR said that it “strongly condemns all acts of violence and illegal activities,” and that it would shut stations without notice if necessary to control unrest. The so-called Big Four international accounting firms have also come under sharp scrutiny. After a group of unnamed employees published an advertisement supporting the protests, the firms quickly tried to distance themselves. “We firmly oppose any action and statement that challenge national sovereignty,” said PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the four. Unsatisfied, a story in the Global Times, a Communist Party–run newspaper, demanded that the companies “fire employees found to have the wrong stance on the current Hong Kong situation.” Read: China’s playbook in Hong Kong is also working in the Asia-Pacific By harassing these specific firms, Beijing’s leaders are clearly sending a wider message to all business in Hong Kong, both local and international: Support the crackdown, or suffer the consequences. A recent commentary in the Global Times made that threat explicit. “Companies should not become accomplices of the rioters. Moreover, they need to see themselves as an important symbol of maintaining a stable and prosperous society,” it read. Otherwise, “behavior that hurts Chinese people's feelings are always eventually uncovered by netizens, and the companies guilty of such behavior are criticized or boycotted.” For now, the pressure on these companies to act against democracy advocates has been limited to Hong Kong. Yet the businesses in Beijing’s crosshairs are also global, with employees and operations around the world. (Even MTR operates rail services in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden.) It is not such a big leap to fear staff working for these firms outside of Hong Kong could also be vulnerable if they express favor toward the protest movement. More broadly, CCP officials have influence over many of the world’s most prominent companies, which they could use to put management and their employees in a chokehold. Could they order General Motors or Nike—or any other international company with extensive business in China—to fire a staffer who tweets support for the Dalai Lama or an independent Taiwan, with the threat of a canceled license or social-media boycott to force compliance? Of course, that would further alienate foreign companies already frustrated by unfair treatment and barriers to their business in the Chinese market. But as the crackdown in Hong Kong shows, the leadership in Beijing can place political control over economic reason. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. is the author of and .
Communist Party of China (CPC) leaders are reportedly putting pressure on companies to take action against employees who support, or who have taken part in, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific flight attendant Rebecca Sy was supposedly fired for supporting the protests on her Facebook page, while the airline had previously been ordered by China's aviation authority to remove any flight attendants involved in the protests from flights to mainland China. Meanwhile, CPC-run newspaper Global Times called for employees of the Big Four international accountancy firms to be fired for having the "wrong stance" on the Hong Kong protests.