So why are Hong Kong’s bureaucrats so unhappy these days? In recent months several high-ranking civil servants have quietly jumped into the private sector–a move that government workers rarely entertained in the past–and executive recruiters say many others would be happy to join them. According to the Hong Kong Transition Project, an ongoing research effort, civil-service morale has reached a historical low. At a time when Hong Kong is facing a gloomy economic future and a crisis of identity, one of its fundamental pillars may be cracking.

In some ways the civil servants are simply coming under the same pressures as the rest of the population. Hong Kong is facing a major deficit (about $9 billion this fiscal year), and Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa aims to solve it partly by chopping the heads and salaries of the people who work for him. The government work force was recently trimmed by 10 percent, and Tung aims to reduce the head count by another 10 percent soon. Last October salary cuts ranging from 1.6 to 4.4 percent were enacted. James Tien, a legislator and close adviser to Tung, says Hong Kong simply spends more than it should on civil servants. “We cannot afford this anymore. In good times civil servants waste a lot of our money, and in bad times we should not keep overpaying them.” He may have a point: about 70 percent of recurrent spending goes to perks and pay for government employees.

Hong Kong’s bureaucrats, who are unionized, are naturally bitter. Last summer some 30,000 civil servants and their families took to the streets to protest salary and benefit reductions. Union leaders say strikes could be next. Cecilia So, president of the 100,000-strong Chinese Civil Servants Association, the biggest government-employees union, says Tung’s clumsiness has poisoned attitudes among bureaucrats. “We always read the rumors about pay cuts first in the papers, instead of hearing directly from the bureau,” she says. “Then when we react, the government [publicly suggests] that the civil service is leading a revolution.” With more cutbacks ahead, the acrimony is sure to continue–and with it the risk that one of the most positive legacies of British colonial rule will slowly disappear.