The 300 or so Communist Party members who work at Walt Disney Co.’s theme park in China don’t keep their politics to themselves. Many attend party lectures during business hours and display hammer-and-sickle insignia at their desks. In June, Shanghai’s flagship party newspaper quoted Murray King, the resort’s Canadian vice president for public affairs, as saying its best employees are mostly party members (a Disney spokeswoman disputed that). According to The Wall Street Journal, the compromises made by Western firms to do business in China are becoming increasingly uncomfortable now that President Xi Jinping is pushing to embed the Communist Party deeper into the world’s second-largest economy. Some foreign companies are concerned that party operatives, over time, may gain influence over management decisions or create an alternative power center. Foreign companies haven’t publicly criticized China over the initiative. Several Western executives said in interviews that open dissent would be corporate suicide in a critical market.
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