Halloween partygoers pushed boundaries in Shanghai last year. This year, police are taking notice

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

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

Crowd control fences had been erected to restrict pedestrian traffic in some streets, according to images on social media, and a park near another popular nightlife area where costumed partygoers had congregated on Saturday was also shuttered the next day.

The tight controls in China’s most cosmopolitan city follow last year’s at times raucous celebrations, when young people came out in force to celebrate the first Halloween since the lifting of China’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions. Many donned costumes offering social critique – a rare phenomenon in a country where dissent is not tolerated in any form.

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

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

Backlash against Western influence

Like other places in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, many young people in China treat Halloween as an occasion to dress up and meet their friends in venues that put on themed events.

But Chinese state media have warned in recent years against citizens being “overly passionate” about Western festivals – part of a broader, nationalistic backlash against perceived foreign influence.

Last weekend’s celebrations appeared to end early for one young man who donned a blond wig and a bandage on 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 skimmed his ear during an assassination attempt in July.

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

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

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

Party like it’s 2023?

Celebrations last year in Shanghai were marked by huge crowds and revelers using the holiday to take tongue-in-cheek swipes at China’s strict Covid lockdowns and lackluster economy.

Some dressed as university graduates who had failed to land a job, a reference to China’s sluggish economy and high youth unemployment rates. Others rocked up in hazmat suits in a sarcastic swipe at China’s stringent Covid control measures, which saw Shanghai locked down for roughly two months and sparked rare protests.

That rare public critique in a country of heavy censorship both in online debate, media and entertainment was largely unimpeded by police last year, who practiced crowd control but did not appear to be proactively stopping people in costumes, based on media reports.

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

“The recent Halloween celebration in Shanghai, 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 happened during “a vacuum” when the Shanghai authorities were working to return to normal less than a year after the lifting of Covid lockdowns.

“This year authorities are much more prepared, and they do not agree with these kinds of activities,” he said.