In China’s digital landscape, even feelings can be subject to government regulation. On September 22, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced its latest “Clear and Clean” (清朗) campaign—this time targeting the “malicious incitement of negative emotions” (恶意挑动负面情绪) across social media, short video, and livestreaming platforms. The two-month campaign promises to crack down on everything from “group antagonism” to “excessive rendering of pessimistic emotions.”

How will run-of-the-mill negativity be distinguished from the incitement of negativity? Is feeling and speaking with positivity now the law of the land? The next enforcement step, naturally, will have to be vigilant policing of the use of extravagant positivity to maliciously poke fun at the leadership. Sound ridiculous? It is already policy elsewhere, in the Chinese Communist Party’s active posture toward “low-level red” and “high-level black” — more in this paper on the topic.

Just the latest absurdly overweening action by the CAC, the notice is a prime example of how political and legal enforcement operate under the CCP. Rather than relying on consistent, transparent rules applied uniformly across platforms, China’s officials and regulators turn to sweeping “special actions” (专项行动) announced throughout the year, granting officials across the country’s vast bureaucracy broad discretionary power to pursue vaguely defined violations and make examples of bad actors — all with the goal of instilling fear and reshaping online discourse.

And fear is the point — whether we are speaking about the ethos of the regulators themselves, or about their tactics. Fear is the fundamental tool applied by agencies like the CAC and offices like the Central Propaganda Department to enforce political controls. A fearful journalist or editor, unable to see the red lines, will think twice. A fearful platform, like RedNote or Bilibili, will turn up the pace on deletions and account suspensions to ensure they “comply.”

A lingering sense of anxiety forms the foundation of China’s media and information policy today — going back to the political upheaval of 1989 that fundamentally transformed the Party’s approach to press control.

The “special action” approach to governance also lays bare its own ineffectiveness. The most recent action from the CAC is to extend over two months. What then? An end to negativity? Surely not. But one thing you can be sure of: the necessity of the next, and then the next, “special action.”

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