Hong Kong protests force companies to choose: Their employees or China

Employers early on supported their workers' desire to protest but have started to shift under pressure from Beijing

On the eve of an antigovernment protest by accountants in Hong Kong, a PricewaterhouseCoopers executive warned his staff not to do anything that could put the firm in a bad light.

“It is important we do not misrepresent or compromise the firm through individual actions,” Raymund Chao, PwC’s chairman for Asia Pacific and Greater China, said in a Thursday memo to employees.

A wave of protests, now in its third month, is pitting Hong Kong’s freedoms against Beijing’s authority. Companies can’t afford a misstep.

A top Chinese official overseeing Hong Kong exhorted the city’s property tycoons and other elites to publicly support the