Former political heavyweight Chung Sze-yuen recalled in his memoirs, published in 2001, how he led a team to see Deng Xiaoping in mid-1984 to put the Hong Kong people's case amid the pre-handover jitters.
Representing the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Council, Dr Chung and his colleagues were bluntly told by Deng that negotiation over the post-1997 fate of Hong Kong was a matter between Beijing and London.
Deng reportedly said: 'There have been talks of the so-called 'three-legged stool'. [There are] not three legs, only two legs.'
As a result, Dr Chung wrote: 'Subsequently, the phrase 'three-legged stool' became the jargon frequently used by the Chinese to discourage any input from Hong Kong people in the talks.'
In the same way that it rejected the validity of the treaties relating to the colonial rule of Hong Kong, Beijing refused to recognise the status of the pre-handover Legco and its members.
Twenty years on and almost seven years after the handover, the interface between the central government and the Hong Kong legislature has been marked by ambivalence and contradiction in the row over constitutional reform.
The political role and status of Legco was called into doubt last week when a team of senior Beijing officials held two sessions in Shenzhen to consult people from different walks of life about a report on democratic development submitted by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.