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A year after Shanghai’s riotous Halloween celebrations Making global headlines, revelers dressed as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and comic book superheroes were escorted by police as authorities appeared to crack down on the festivities.

Videos on social media showed a heavy police presence in three areas crowded with bars and restaurants in Shanghai, where revelers usually celebrate the annual tradition more closely associated with the United States, raising concerns about further narrowing of personal freedoms in China.

Crowd control fences were erected to restrict pedestrian traffic on some streets, according to images on social media, and a park near another popular nightlife area where costumed revelers had gathered on Saturday was also closed the next day.

Strict controls in China’s most cosmopolitan city sometimes follow those of last year noisy holidayswhen young people came out in force to celebrate the first Halloween since the rise of China strict restrictions related to Covid-19. Many donned costumes offering social criticism – a rare phenomenon in a country where dissent is not tolerated in any form.

This year, Chinese police appeared keen to avoid similar scenes – with several videos circulating online, geolocated by CNN, showing police stopping people in various Halloween costumes and escorting some away.

It was not clear if they were detained or just escorted from the immediate area. The circumstances leading up to these interactions with law enforcement were also unclear. As of Tuesday, some videos were still circulating on China’s heavily censored internet, while others appeared to have been removed.

While some officially sanctioned Halloween celebrations, such as those at the Shanghai Disney Resort and Happy Valley theme park, went ahead as scheduled, the apparent curtailment of some public Halloween gatherings this year has caught the attention of Chinese internet users. social networks, with a user. on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, noting that her social media feed felt particularly empty.

“Was it no longer allowed to dress up for Halloween on Julu Road in Shanghai this year? How come there wasn’t a single photo in my feed?” she asked, referring to a popular nightlife area. Geolocated online footage by CNN showed police at one point restricted pedestrian flow on Julu Road.

Reaction against Western influence

As in other places in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, many young people in China treat Halloween as an opportunity to dress up and meet their friends at places that organize themed events.

But Chinese state media have warned in recent years that citizens are “over-enthusiastic” about Western festivals – part of a broader nationalist reaction against perceived foreign influence.

Last weekend’s festivities appeared to end early for a young man who wore a blonde wig and a bandage over his right ear to imitate former US President Donald Trump, a now-deleted post on Chinese social media platform Douyin showed. Trump wore the bandage after a bullet went through his ear during an assassination attempt in July.

Superheroes Spiderman and Batman, as well as a man who donned a yellow coat with a beaded necklace in the image of Buddha, were all escorted by police, according to online videos.

CNN tried to contact Shanghai authorities for comment on the number of interactions with revelers last weekend, but did not receive a response. An officer from a local police station said they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In China, crowd control measures are not uncommon in public, especially during the holidays, but some online users openly wondered what it would mean for future Halloweens.

“(I suspect) there will never be another Halloween in Shanghai as innovative as the one in 2023. It will slowly lose its edge and become harmonized,” one user wrote.

Partying like it’s 2023?

Last year’s holiday in Shanghai was marked by huge crowds and revelers who used the holiday to make light of China’s strict Covid-19 lockdown and weak economy.

Some dressed as university graduates who couldn’t get a job, a reference to China’s sluggish economy and high youth unemployment rates. Others rocked hazmat suits in a sarcastic jab at China’s strict Covid-19 control measures, which have seen Shanghai closed for about two months and it triggered rare protests.

That rare public criticism in a country with heavy censorship of both online debate and media and entertainment was largely unhindered by police last year, who practiced crowd control but did not appear to proactively stop people in costume based on media reports.

Shanghai’s municipal government even praised last year’s Halloween celebration as “a sign of cultural tolerance.”

“Shanghai’s recent Halloween celebration, with its unique blend of Western traditions and Chinese creativity, offered a glimpse into the evolving cultural landscape of a vibrant city,” it said in a statement last year.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said last year’s celebration took place in “a vacuum” as Shanghai authorities worked to return to normal less than one year after the lifting of the Covid Lockdowns.

“The authorities this year are much more prepared and do not agree with this kind of activities,” he said.

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