BEIJING'S attack against the Secretary for Economic Services, Mrs Anson Chan, over her statement on the controversial Container Terminal Nine (CT9) project has hit many of Hongkong's top civil servants like a bombshell.
With a growing threat of living under a regime with two masters, the road to 1997 will be bumpy ride for many civil servants who have aspirations for a career after the change of sovereignty.
Therefore, the comments by Hongkong Affairs advisers, Mr Donald Liao Poon-huai and Mr Vincent Lo Hong-sui, about the anxieties local officers have about their future after the transition is timely, if only to clear up local uncertainties.
The attacks, which must be viewed within the context of Beijing's objections to the Patten democracy blueprint, shocked top-level administrators who now wonder whether they will become a target for Beijing if they support the Governor.
Traditionally, Hongkong's bureaucrats are politically neutral but under the Patten regime they have been unavoidably drawn into the controversy about increased democracy in the territory.
However, they do have a responsibility to speak about their area of speciality and this responsibility carries a ''cost'' in Chinese terms as promotion of a particular policy could be interpreted as unpopular and unfriendly by China.