I'll cautiously say no, it's apocryphal.

One of the things with Confucius is that he's quoted in at least five major texts I can think of off the top of my head (Analects, I Ching, Mencius, Book of Rites, Chuang Tzu), all of which have dozens of English translations, and each of which has him saying slightly different kinds of things.

I can see him saying something along the lines of "laws don't rule a country" in any of those books, just about, but it would be clarified by something about li or yi or righteousness or ruling by example.

What's the difference between a "word" and a "sign"? That's some confusing semiotics.

I think I figured out the quote in Chinese. It means the same thing as your English quote above. Here it is:

”是符号和标志统治世界,而不是空谈,也不是法律“

However, when searching that quote on baidu (Chinese google) all I was able to find were a few Chinese blogs with no reference to the original text. After seeing the Chinese websites I'm more inclined to say that the quote is real, but the verdict is still out.

On another note, apparently a lot of Confucius' stuff wasn't actually writen by him, but by his many followers, so even if that quote really is from one of his books, it may have been someone else who originally wrote it.

*Edit: You may also want to try asking this on r/ChineseLanguage/.

I tend to consider it is not in the Analect since I don't remember having read anything that sounded like that and that it seems so conspiracy-theorist friendly ... But let's assume, for the sake of it, that it is legit. The idea that laws don't rule the world as much as we think (or at least should not) is an idea that exists in Confucianism. But not really with the meaning that conspiracy theorists give to it.

For Confucius, one of the most fundamental idea is that the ruler sets an example to his people. If he is a good ruler who rules according to the 5 cardinal virtues and respects the teaching of Confucianism, then his people, inspired by his behaviour, will start to mimick him and consequently will too become good persons. On the other hand, if the government rules only through laws and punishments, then the people will for sure act well, but it will only be because they want to avoid punishment ; not because they are good persons. (The textbook example of this idea is the 3rd "verse" of the second chapter of the Analect : 子曰：「道之以政，齊之以刑，民免而無恥；道之以德，齊之以禮，有恥且格。」. I won't even try to translate Classical Chinese into English myself, I'm far too bad in English for that, so here are two translations first second)

You could say that "Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws" sums up this idea, but it is far too obscure to be a good summary. And even then, it doesn't mean all the occult / conspiracy stuff that is implied by conspiracy theorists. And again, I don't remember I have ever read this sentence.

Edit: Corrected a typo and one of the link didn't send to the right translation, it's fixed now.