The Hong Kong protesters formed a line, patiently waiting their turn to buy sweet milk and tea drinks from a store that advertised ardent support for their cause with a banner declaring, “If you set off a nuclear blast, we’ll stick by you.”

For quicker service, they could have quenched their thirsts at an adjacent store that also sells bubble tea. It had no customers.

Which is exactly as the protesters intended.

Digging in for the long haul against Hong Kong’s government, protesters are expanding their struggle from the streets to their wallets, weaponizing their spending power to punish businesses they deem hostile to their cause. The aim: to drive some firms under in the deepening recession gripping the crisis-hit city.

Guiding the consumer choices of tech-savvy protesters are apps that increasingly are colour-coding businesses — everything from dentistry clinics and toy stores to dumpling restaurants and sex shops — into two categories: yellow for protest-friendly, blue for suspected opponents.

“Blue! blue!” protesters yelled outside the bubble tea shop they shunned during a rally this month that marked the half-year milestone for their movement.

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