The Hong Kong Bar Association says the People’s Republic of China government’s move to delay Hong Kong’s legislature elections by a year “may be unlawful.”

They are mistaken; the delay is not unlawful. Unlawfulness presumes that there are laws to be broken. In a nation that rules by law—as opposed nations that operate under the principle of rule of law—any law is what the men of the People’s Republic of China government say it is. And they’ll adjust the text of a law, or rescind one or write a new one, at whim to suit their whims.

There are no laws that can be broken in the PRC. A law in that nation is simply a strip of clay, to be molded and remolded at convenience.