Four opposition members of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Legislative Council were disqualified on Wednesday shortly after the top national legislature adopted a resolution concerning Hong Kong lawmakers' qualifications to hold office.

The resolution passed by the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, marks a key, and overdue, step in the country's institutional progress to ensure the SAR's peace and stability.

The resolution stipulates that members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council will be disqualified immediately once they are determined by law to have failed to meet their legal requirements to uphold the HKSAR Basic Law or honor their pledge of allegiance.

The legitimacy and necessity for the resolution is beyond question, as any lawmakers in the SAR who advocate or support "Hong Kong independence", refuse to recognize the State's sovereignty and its exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong, seek the interference of foreign countries or external forces in Hong Kong affairs, or commit other acts endangering national security, deserve no place in the SAR's legislature, as they have chosen to stand against the interests of Hong Kong and its residents, and by extension against the country and the Chinese people.

In that sense, the SAR government's decision to expel Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung for failing to fulfill the qualification criteria for holding office after the resolution was passed has shown not only the teeth of the resolution, but also that there is no place for any lawmakers in Hong Kong that do not hold allegiance to the country.

With the resolution in place, those opposition lawmakers in the SAR who fancy that they can continue to act as pawns of external forces in the city's legislature should wake up to the reality that the days when they could act with impunity are gone.

The country's top legislature will by no means indulge any troublemakers seeking to hijack Hong Kong's legislative council.

The sanctions the United States slapped on four more officials on the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, accusing them of "threatening the peace and security" of the city, have only served to heighten the necessity of the resolution, as despite the domestic chaos in the US, Washington has apparently decided to continue to play an ugly meddling role in Hong Kong.

With the improvement of the legal and institutional framework, the SAR government will no longer be hindered from implementing policies to improve the well-being of Hong Kong residents.

The resolution is another guarantee for the return of peace and prosperity to Hong Kong.