IF THERE is one mainland official who commands a degree of respect in the territory, it is Hong Kong and Macau Affairs chief Lu Ping.
Delegations return from Beijing singing his praises. British and Hong Kong officials enthuse about how much easier he is to deal with than local Xinhua (New China New Agency) chief Zhou Nan. Governor Chris Patten was an early fan. In the early days of his governorship, he showered praise on Mr Lu, although it stopped after the silvery-haired Shanghainese denounced him as a 'man of guilt for 1,000 years'.
Elsewhere the local love affair with Mr Lu continues unabated. Even arch-opponents praise him. 'Lu Ping's good news for Hong Kong,' Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming said in an unguarded moment.
It is easy to see why. Mr Lu knows the territory better than other Chinese officials and displays an understanding of its way of life almost unique among cadres. This is why there was such surprise over last week's outbursts on the transfer of civil service files.
Nothing could have been more calculated to destabilise the civil service Mr Lu had so often pledged to preserve. Yet China will gain nothing from these attacks that it could not have acquired without them.
Mr Patten's table-banging response is somewhat disingenuous in this respect. Former Chief Secretary Sir David Ford and others made it clear long ago that the administration would supply China with performance appraisals of top civil servants - one of the demands the local leftist press is currently making on Beijing's behalf.
Even the sensitive subject of who holds foreign passports could readily have been resolved behind closed doors, had that been what Mr Lu wanted. While the Governor is right to say no list of successful applicants under the British nationality scheme could ever be handed over, Beijing's goal could have been achieved through different means.