SENIOR Chinese officials yesterday assured Hongkong civil servants they would not be punished after 1997 for supporting constitutional reforms proposed by the Governor, Mr Chris Patten.
Both the director of the local branch of the New China News Agency (NCNA), Mr Zhou Nan, and one of his deputies, Mr Qin Wenjun, were attempting to dispel fears that senior officials' careers might be purged for publicly backing Mr Patten.
Hongkong officials could put their minds at ease, said Mr Zhou at the end of meetings in Guangzhou with Hongkong advisers.
''It is clearly stated in the Basic Law that . . . the majority of them will continue to work for the Special Administrative Region government,'' said the local NCNA chief.
Civil servants' anxieties resulting from the current Sino-British row over the Patten proposals were raised by Hongkong advisers Mr Vincent Lo Hong-sui and Mr Donald Liao Poon-huai during meetings with Mr Zhou and the director of the State Council's Hongkong and Macau Affairs Office, Mr Lu Ping.
They cited Beijing's condemnation of the Secretary for Economic Services, Mrs Anson Chan Fang On-sang, for saying that the Hongkong Government was empowered to grant the contract for the construction of Container Terminal 9.