Chinese dissident Zhou Duo, who was imprisoned for nearly a year for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, arrived from China last night to spend a year as guest scholar at Harvard.

Zhou will research the prospects of China's peaceful transition to Democracy, according to Kyodo, a Tokyo newspaper.

But sociology and East Asian studies officials contacted yesterday said they are not certain what Zhou will do during his stay.

Zhou, a former sociology instructor at Beijing University, received an invitation from the Harvard sociology department in November 1991.

However, the scholar did not qualify for a passport until April 1992, after the Deng Xiaoping regime's decision to increase emigration of influential dissidents.

Zhou and three other pro-democracy Chinese scholars staged a brief hunger strike on June 3, 1989 as part of a student protest in Tiananmen Square.

One day later, the protest ended tragically when Chinese troops cleared the square, killing 1,000 protesters.

That night, Zhou and three other dissidents negotiated with the Chinese military to permit the nonviolent release of the surviving protesters.

But a government crackdown on dissidents after the massacre ensnared Zhou. He served 10 months in a Chinese prison.

"[Zhou] was a force of moderation for thestudent movement in 1989," said research associateRoss Terrill, a journalist and author who wasexpelled from China in September. The communistgovernment opposed Terrill's support of Chinesestudent dissident Shen Tong.

"Zhou helped to avoid worse violence...[bycreating] a bridge between the police and radicalstudents," Terrill said.

After his release from prison in May 1990, Zhouopened a hotel outside Beijing to raise money forthe pro-democracy movement.

In an attempt to stop dissidents from aidingthe movement, Chinese officials arrested Zhou ashe was organizing a press conference to call forthe release of Tiananmen Square prisoners.

Chinese pro-democracy forces are currentlyworking to gain greater freedom of the press andto strengthen the National People's Congress,China's virtually powerless legislative body.

But economic stability might disrupt themovement, Zhou said in an interview with the SouthChina Morning Post Monday. "Many intellectualsfeel that taking this road [economic growthwithout political reform] is not a bad thing,"Zhou said.

Zhou is one of more than a dozen Chinesedissidents to study at Harvard. Gao Xin, who alsonegotiated with Chinese troops at Tiananmen, was aguest scholar last year