http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/world/asia/even-more-than-usual-china-clamps-down-on-dissent.html 2014-10-13 02:08:22 Even More Than Usual, China Clamps Down on Dissent Guo Yushan, who played a key role in helping the blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng escape house arrest, is detained for “picking quarrels.” === BEIJING — Guo Yushan, a Chinese scholar and social reform advocate, suspected his days as a free man might be numbered. Having played a key role in helping “My friends joke that the Communist Party owes me a jail sentence,” he said in an interview last fall, shortly after emerging from an 81-day stretch of “soft detention” confined to his home on the outskirts of the capital. At 2 a.m. on Thursday, friends say, Mr. Guo was led away from his apartment by more than a dozen security agents, who also confiscated his computer, hard drives and documents. Mr. Guo’s apparent crime, according to friends, was “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” the catchall charge that the Chinese authorities have been using with growing frequency in an effort to silence perceived enemies. It is not clear what prompted his detention, but Mr. Guo could simply be the latest victim of a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent that has picked up steam since pro-democracy demonstrations in “If this is related to Occupy Central, there’s a big possibility he will lose his freedom,” said Fang Liping, a rights lawyer, referring to the protests in Hong Kong, which Chinese leaders fear could spread beyond the former British colony. But on Sunday, Mr. Guo’s friends said they were puzzled by his detention because he had deliberately kept a low profile in the year since the authorities shut down the independent research institute he had helped run. As far as they knew, Mr. Guo had refrained from making any public gestures in support of the demonstrations in Hong Kong. “He is very courageous yet extremely rational, gentle, and has a very strong awareness of the law,” said In addition to helping Mr. Chen make his way into the United States Embassy in Beijing two years ago, Mr. Guo is best known for association with the But since Jerome A. Cohen The authorities shut Mr. Guo’s institute last year, not long after the arrest of Speaking at a cafe last October, Mr. Guo said he supported Mr. Xu’s goal of promoting greater government transparency but disagreed with his tactics, which included small rallies during which participants held up banners calling on public officials to disclose their financial assets. “He crossed a red line and took his cause to the streets,” he said. Still, Mr. Guo directed much of his anger at China’s leader, Mr. Xi, who he believed was intent on silencing not just advocates of political reform but also those seeking to address China’s most intractable social problems through nongovernmental organizations. That strategy, he predicted, would likely backfire. “Xi’s not addressing the needs and frustrations of the people, and crushing people like us who are trying to improve society,” he said. “We will be left with chaos.” Having just emerged from almost three months of house arrest, Mr. Guo was skittish about talking to a foreign journalist but determined to continue his work as a social reformer. Still, he expressed concern that the police would make good on a threat, delivered during an earlier interrogation, that he would at some point be punished for helping Mr. Chen escape house arrest and sneak into the United States Embassy. “We are in the midst of a very dark time,” he said, “and it’s only going to get worse.”