On February 9, Tung Chee-hwa picked up the phone and called Vice-Premier Qian Qichen.
The cause was the rapidly-deteriorating constitutional crisis. Mainland legal experts - acting as a surrogate for the central Government - were attacking the Court of Final Appeal's (CFA) assertion that it had the right to overrule acts of the National People's Congress.
Opinion polls showed a sharp drop in public confidence in the 'one country, two systems' concept and Mr Tung urgently needed to stop the situation spiralling out of control.
On that day, he also made numerous other calls to Beijing. This telephone diplomacy is now widely credited with having defused the situation before it got out of hand. Almost as soon as Mr Tung had put the phone down, the mainland began to tone down the level of rhetoric on the issue.
Agreement was reached on sending Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie on an urgent follow-up mission to Beijing. Within weeks the crisis was over, with the CFA's controversial clarification of its ruling.
This was followed by the right of abode controversy, over the claimed threat of an influx of 1.67 million migrants. There is good reason to believe this once again caused Mr Tung to phone key figures in Beijing on several occasions in recent weeks, as part of efforts to resolve the crisis.
Just who he called over this issue is not clear. But it would be no surprise if Mr Qian was once again at the top of the list. It is now clear Mr Tung has better access to senior levels of the mainland leadership than sceptics, including this column, have previously suggested.