THE ATLANTIC: Angering China Can Now Get You Fired. “The pressure on Hong Kong executives to suppress dissent could go global.”

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.

“Kowtow” isn’t a Chinese word because the emperors played nice, but it seems like if Beijing thought they could afford to really crack down on Hong Kong, they’d have done so already. Or maybe Xi just isn’t desperate enough yet to try anything really rash.