Just who will be left in Hong kong's civil service after 1997?

AFTER new Governor Mr Chris Patten arrived last July, he summoned 18 top officials to line up for a photocall outside Government House. A similar photocall on July 1, 1997, will look remarkably different - at least 13 out of that Patten album photo are expected to have gone before the handover.

Senior civil servants have found themselves uncomfortably in the spotlight in the wake of murmurings from China as to the future position of officials seen to support the Patten reform plan. Despite local New China News Agency (NCNA) chief Mr Zhou Nan's pledge last week that no civil servant will be persecuted after 1997, fears remain deep-rooted.

Watching developments closely are the ''Brave New Worlders'': the relatively young civil service high-flyers who must stay on to help run Hongkong after 1997, if there is to be any hope of a smooth transition.

It is they, far more than their better-known colleagues still more often in the forefront of battles with Beijing, who have most to fear from China's recent attacks on individual civil servants.

For while some of the targets of recent attacks by Beijing have little to be concerned about - since they will be gone by then - it is those who will step into their shoes who have to worry about the consequences.

Neither Secretary for the Treasury Mr Yeung Kai-yin, 52, who has incurred China's wrath over the airport project, nor Secretary for Economic Services Mrs Anson Chan Fang On-sang, 53, who China last month accused of lying over CT9, are likely to stay beyond 1997.