SINCE the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, delegation after delegation from various government branches and departments have visited Beijing to build up a network of contacts with the future sovereign.
But the Government's information chiefs were always conspicuously missing.
At least that was the case until yesterday when the director of Government Information Services (GIS), Irene Yau, and her senior aides began a series of meetings with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing.
Nobody seems to have noticed the gap and even this maiden visit by the GIS heavyweights has failed to arouse strong interest in political circles.
Strangely, people seem to have forgotten how important a role bureaucrats in liaison with the media have in the Chinese hierarchy, a syndrome probably best explained by a lack of trust in the GIS by the top brass of the present administration in recent years.
Following the establishment of the Information Co-ordinator's (IC) Office in 1989, the sensitive role of the GIS as the Government's public relations adviser was effectively taken over by the information co-ordinator, a job monopolised by expatriate civil servants.