A major airline company is investigating “rumors circulating online” that employees are drafting a letter supporting the Hong Kong protests as China pressures business leaders to help stifle the political crisis.
“They’re actually using these relationships for the interests of the Communist Party,” retired Air Force Gen. Rob Spalding, a China expert at the Hudson Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
Cathay Pacific Airlines has been one of the most prominent targets of Chinese pressure in recent weeks, as the Hong Kong-based company angered Beijing by affirming that their employees have a right to think what they want about the pro-democracy protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous city for months. Two senior executives were forced to resign on Friday, while the airline is on the lookout for employees who express opinions that the mainland Communist regime opposes.
“While we cannot confirm the authenticity of this letter, we are taking the matter very seriously and are conducting an internal investigation,” the airline said Sunday. “Cathay Pacific is deeply concerned by the ongoing violence and disruption impacting Hong Kong.”
That’s a far cry from the company’s position two weeks ago, when Cathay chairman John Slosar said the company “wouldn’t dream of telling [employees] what they have to think about something.” Communist aviation authorities subsequently branded the airline as a “severe risk” and banned Cathay employees that participated in the protests from working on flights between Hong Kong and the mainland.
They’re not the only ones trying to signal compliance with Beijing’s demands. Four major international accounting firms distanced themselves from a local newspaper ad that a group of their employees published in support of the protests on the same day that Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg and chief customer and commercial officer Paul Loo Kar-pui announced their resignations.
“Most firms in Hong Kong that engage in business with mainland China know that there is always a degree of political risk that needs to be navigated,” Duncan Innes-Ker, regional director for Asia at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said Monday. “Companies may find that their employees’ activism turns into a political risk in mainland China, if this campaigning becomes associated with the firm’s brand.”
Cathay Pacific is particularly susceptible to pressure from the mainland regime, because state-owned Air China owns a 22% stake in the airline. “They’re basically saying, ‘Look, if you don’t get on our side, no matter how these protests end up, your business is going to be hurt,’ because what they’re looking for is to put as much pressure on the protesters as they can,” Spalding told the Washington Examiner.
“And one way to put pressure on them is to make sure they don’t have a job.”
Some protesters are prepared to take that risk. “In that case, I’ll look for another job,” Joseph Lai, a 46-year-old Hong Kong resident told the New York Times. “If we don’t come, how can we say we’re Hong Kong people?”
The protests began has a reaction against an extradition bill that would have allowed mainland authorities to take custody of Hong Kong residents on flimsy evidence, but they have continued throughout the summer, fed by anger over police brutality and the Beijing-backed local government’s refusal to scrap the extradition bill permanently.
The protesters endured a public relations defeat last weekend, as clashes in the Hong Kong airport played into mainland Chinese claims that the demonstrators are rioters who need to be punished, but they regrouped to muster an estimated 1.7 million people for peaceful protests on Sunday.
Spalding likened the Cathay controversy issue to the “social credit system” that Communist officials use to influence the behavior of mainland Chinese residents, an authoritarian tactic to “restore morality” by depriving “uncivilized” people of the ability to purchase plane tickets or conduct normal business.
The tactic of pressuring the company to crack down on employees that back the protests could foreshadow Chinese government efforts to affect how companies behave in controversies around the world.
“You’re seeing the elements of the way that they seek to influence the world through these Hong Kong protests,” Spalding said.
