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CNN
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A year after Shanghai’s boisterous Halloween celebrations made global headlines, partygoers dressed as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and cartoon heroes were led away by police as authorities appeared to crack down on the festivities.

Videos on social media showed a heavy police presence in three busy bar and restaurant areas in Shanghai where revelers typically celebrate the annual tradition more closely linked to the United States, raising concerns about further curbs on personal freedoms in China.

According to images on social media, fences had been erected to restrict pedestrian traffic on some streets, and a park near another popular entertainment area where costumed partygoers gathered on Saturday was also closed the next day.

The strict controls in China’s most cosmopolitan city follow last year’s sometimes raucous celebrations, when young people turned out en masse to celebrate the first Halloween since the lifting of China’s strict Covid-19 restrictions. A lot of don costumes that express social criticism – a rare phenomenon in a country where dissent in any form is not tolerated.

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

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

Although some officially sanctioned Halloween celebrations, such as those at the Shanghai Disney Resort and Happy Valley theme park, went ahead as planned, the apparent pressure on some public Halloween gatherings caught the attention of Chinese social media users this year, with one user on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X, commenting that her social media feed felt particularly empty.

“Was dressing up for Halloween no longer allowed on Julu Road in Shanghai this year? How come there isn’t a single photo in my feed?” she asked, referring to a popular entertainment area. Online images geolocated by CNN showed police at one point restricted pedestrian flow on Julu Road.

Like other places in Asia such as Japan and South Korea, many young people in China view Halloween as an opportunity to dress up and meet their friends at locations where themed events take place.

But Chinese state media have warned in recent years against citizens who are ‘overly passionate’ about Western festivals – part of a wider, nationalist backlash against perceived foreign influence.

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

Superheroes Spiderman and Batman, as well as a man who attracted attention wearing a yellow robe with a string of beads in the image of the Buddha, were all led away by police, according to online videos.

CNN attempted to reach Shanghai authorities for comment on the number of interactions with partygoers last time weekend, but have not yet received a response. An officer at 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 holidays, but some online users openly wondered what this would mean for future Halloweens.

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

Last year’s celebrations in Shanghai were marked by huge crowds and revelers who used the holiday to poke fun at China’s strict Covid lockdowns and lackluster economy.

Some dressed as university graduates who had failed to find jobs, a reference to China’s sluggish economy and high youth unemployment. Others dressed in hazmat suits in a sarcastic swipe at China’s strict Covid control measures, forcing Shanghai to go into lockdown for about two months and sparking rare protests.

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

The Shanghai 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, provided 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 National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said last year’s celebration took place in “a vacuum” as authorities in Shanghai worked to reopen less than a year after the lifting of the law to return to normal. Covid lockdowns.

“This year the authorities are much better prepared and do not agree with this kind of activity,” he said.