China claims its Hong Kong national security law is designed only for counterterrorism, foreign espionage, and treason.

The Chinese Communist Party hammered the final nail into that claim’s credibility coffin on Wednesday. It did so by arbitrarily expelling four elected pro-democracy Hong Kong city legislators. The expulsion then provoked the mass resignation of the remaining 15 pro-democracy legislators and a formalization of the inevitable truth. The truth is, as one resigned official told the media, that Hong Kong “can no longer tell the world that we still have ‘one country, two systems,’ this declares its official death.”