Constructing an Authoritarian Emotional Regime: Analyzing Online Public Sentiment of China’s Marriage and Fertility Policies

China has introduced a series of new policies to address its declining marriage and fertility rates, sparking significant debate on social media. This study analyzes public reactions to these policies, offering a nuanced view of evolving attitudes toward marriage and fertility in China, as well as shifting compliance with government directives. It also evaluates the effectiveness of policy communication within an authoritarian regime, investigating whether public sentiment and perception align with policymakers’ expectations. Focusing on four major policies introduced in recent years: (1) the divorce cooling-off period (2021); (2) the three-child policy (2021); (3) the revised Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women (2022), and (4) the draft revision of the Marriage Registration Regulations (2024). This study gathers comments and reposts from state media accounts on Weibo, totaling 114 posts, including 33,769 comments and 62,724 reposts. A lexicon-based sentiment analysis, utilizing the Chinese Emotional Vocabulary Ontology Database developed by Dalian University of Technology, indicates that among the seven major emotional categories, disgust (31%), good (28.9%), and sadness (28.2%) are the most prevalent. Within these categories, criticism (18.61%), disappointment (18.24%), and praise (16.28%) dominate. The study suggests the construction of an “authoritarian emotional regime” on social media, where “good” sentiment is expected as the normative response to government initiatives. However, through digital masquerade, netizens maintain some political power to express non-normative emotions, including concerns about gender inequality and the lack of protection for women’s rights.