The musician was identified as Fei Xiaosheng.

Xi’an police caught up with Fei, 55, on Tuesday, and are now holding him the Beilin Detention Center, his associates told Radio Free Asia.

The musician has been detained at a time when the ruling Communist Party continues to crack down on artists and other creative workers whose work or views are seen as potentially subversive.

“I was shocked to hear that Songzhuang musician and artist Fei Xiaosheng has been detained,” fellow artist Du Yinghong, who now lives in Thailand, wrote on social media as quoted by Radio Free Asia.

“Two years ago, we contacted each other a number of times, and he said he envied me [living outside of China],” he wrote. “A few days ago, we had a video call, and I found out he had applied for a passport, gone to Serbia, yet somehow returned to the cage that is our country.”

“He said he planned to leave again soon, and told me to add his European number, but then we heard the bad news that he’d been arrested,” Du wrote.

Writer He Sanpo, who like many Chinese writers now lives in Thailand, said he was saddened to hear of Fei’s detention, but not surprised.“But people who are really engaged in making art know that China is finished,” he was quoted as saying by Radio Free Asia. “In today’s China, if you have a conscience and dare to speak a few truths, you will have committed some crime.”