纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国承认以间谍罪名监禁一名英国商人

A British businessman who disappeared from public view in China in 2018 was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, in its first public acknowledgment of the case.

中国外交部上周五表示，2018年在中国从公众视野中消失的一名英国商人在2022年被判处五年监禁，这是本案首次得到公开承认。

The businessman, Ian J. Stones, had lived in China since the 1970s, working for companies like General Motors and Pfizer. For years after he vanished, there was no public information about his whereabouts, though some in the business community privately discussed his secret detention.

这名商人名为石伊恩(Ian J. Stones)，自1970年代以来一直居住在中国，为通用汽车和辉瑞等公司工作。在他消失后的数年一直没有关于其下落的公开信息，尽管一些商界人士私下讨论过他被秘密关押一事。

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said that Mr. Stones had been convicted in 2022 of “buying and unlawfully supplying intelligence for an organization or individual outside China.” Mr. Stones’s appeal of the verdict was rejected in September 2023, said the spokesman, Wang Wenbin.

外交部一名发言人表示，石伊恩2022年被判决“为境外收买、非法提供情报罪”罪名成立。发言人汪文斌称，石伊恩对该判决的上诉于2023年9月被驳回。

Mr. Wang was responding to reporters’ questions at a regularly scheduled news conference, after The Wall Street Journal reported Mr. Stones’s case on Thursday.

汪文斌在一场例行记者会上回应记者提问时作出了上述表示，在之前的周四，《华尔街日报》对石伊恩案进行了报道。

“The Chinese courts heard the trial strictly in accordance with the law,” Mr. Wang said, adding that China “protects the lawful rights of Chinese and foreign parties.”

“中方法院严格依法审理案件，”汪文斌说，并且中国“保障中外当事人各项合法权利”。

It is unclear when Mr. Stones will be released and whether he will be given credit for time served before his conviction.

尚不清楚石伊恩将何时被释放，或他被定罪前遭到关押的时间是否会从刑期中扣除。

Laura Stones, Mr. Stones’s daughter, did not respond to a request for comment. But she told The Journal that the Chinese authorities had not given her or British Embassy staff access to the legal documents in the case, nor allowed them to attend the trial.

石伊恩的女儿罗拉·斯通斯没有回应置评请求。但她告诉《华尔街日报》，中国当局没有允许她或英国大使馆工作人员获取该案的法律文件，也不允许他们出席庭审。

The revelation is likely to deepen concerns among foreign companies about the risks of operating in China in an increasingly insular political climate, led by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and the country’s powerful security agencies.

在中国领导人习近平和该国强大的安全机构带领下愈发闭塞的政治环境中，这一披露很可能会令外国公司更加担心在中国运营的风险。

China revised its already sweeping counterespionage law last year to expand the definition of spying and has warned repeatedly in recent months about the dangers of interactions with foreigners. Officials also raided last year the offices of several American companies and detained some Chinese employees.

中国去年修订了本已涵盖范围极广的反间谍法，扩大对间谍活动的定义，并在近几个月来多次对与外国人士交往的危险作出警告。去年，官员还突击搜查了多家美国公司的驻华办公室，关押了一些中国雇员。

Foreign governments have at times accused China of arresting foreigners as political pawns, as in the case of two Canadians arrested in 2018 after Canada detained a prominent Chinese technology executive. An Australian businessman and writer, Yang Hengjun, is still in detention in China, and an Australian journalist, Cheng Lei, was released in October. Both had been accused of unrelated national security offenses and have denied wrongdoing.

外国政府有时指控中国将逮捕外国人作为政治棋子，2018年加拿大拘留了一名重要的中国科技高管后，两名加拿大人遭到逮捕的案子就是如此。澳大利亚商人、作家杨恒均仍被关押在中国。去年10月，澳大利亚记者成蕾获释。两人都被控危害国家安全行为（两人被控罪名没有关联），并且两人均否认有不当行为。

There is no official tally of the number of foreigners detained in China. Information about the charges against them is usually highly limited. While detained foreigners’ governments or relatives sometimes speak up about their cases, some remain quiet, possibly in hopes of negotiating behind the scenes with Beijing.

官方没有公布被拘押在中国的外国人数量。关于针对他们控罪的信息通常极为有限。尽管一些被拘外国人的政府或亲属有时会就其案件发声，但一些人也会保持沉默，很有可能是出于抱着能在幕后与北京谈判的希望。

Mr. Stones, who is around 70, had worked as a senior manager for General Motors Asia, helping it to expand in China in the 1990s, and as a manager in China for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. At the time of his detention, he had been working for over a decade as a consultant advising investors on deals, regulations and disputes in China, according to his LinkedIn page, which is no longer available online.

年龄在70岁上下的石伊恩曾任通用汽车亚洲区高级经理，帮助该公司于1990年代在中国扩张。在中国，他还曾在辉瑞制药任职经理。根据其现已删除的领英页面，被关押之时，他已作为顾问工作了超过十年，就中国的交易、法规和纠纷方面提供建议。

With his decades of experience in the country and fluency in Chinese, he was well known among Western investors and executives in Beijing. On LinkedIn, Mr. Stones said that Navisino Partners, a consulting company where he was a partner, specialized in “finding solutions to difficult challenges, structuring deals, work-outs, turnarounds.”

由于在中国数十年的经验和流利的中文，他在北京的西方投资者和高管中十分知名。在领英上，石伊恩表示他所担任合伙人的咨询公司Navisino Partners专长于“为艰巨挑战、构建交易、解难、重组找到解决方案”。

He also had relationships with Chinese government agencies; he had presented to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, according to an annual report in 2007 by The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group where he was a senior adviser.

他还曾与中国政府机构有过关系，根据总部位于纽约的商业研究团体世界大型企业联合会2007年的一份年度报告，他曾向中国国家统计局作报告。石伊恩曾为该联合会的高级顾问。

The length of Mr. Stones’s tenure in China made him among the best-connected foreigners in Beijing, said Peter Humphrey, a British private investigator who met Mr. Stones in China in the late 1970s. Mr. Humphrey was detained for two years in China on charges of illegally obtaining information and deported after his release in 2015; he has said he believed his work in China was legal.

石伊恩在中国的长期任职也让他成为了北京人脉最广的外国人士之一，曾于1970年代末在中国结识他的英国私家侦探韩飞龙(Peter Humphrey)说。韩本人曾因非法获取信息的罪名在中国被关押两年，2015年获释后被遣返。他说他认为自己在中国的工作是合法的。

Some of the people Mr. Stones met during his early days in China went on to become high-level officials, Mr. Humphrey said, which made him an especially sought-after business figure.

石伊恩在中国早期认识的一些人后来都成为了高级官员，韩飞龙说，这让他更是成为了一个很受欢迎的商界人物。

But by 2015, Mr. Stones knew he was potentially at risk, Mr. Humphrey said. The two men met then in Britain, not long after Mr. Humphrey’s release, and Mr. Stones told him that he had been asked to speak with state security officials and was under surveillance.

但到了2015年，石伊恩知道自己有可能处在危险中，韩飞龙说。在韩飞龙获释不久，两人在英国见了面，石伊恩告诉他自己已被要求与国家安全官员谈话，并且已处于监视之下。

“He seemed to think he could handle it,” Mr. Humphrey said. “Obviously he was wrong.”

“他似乎认为自己能处理好这件事，”韩飞龙说。“很显然他错了。”

Mr. Humphrey’s account could not be independently verified.

韩飞龙的说法无法得到独立证实。

The circumstances around Mr. Stones’s arrest remain opaque, and it is unknown what communications have taken place between the British and Chinese governments. Britain’s foreign office declined to comment.

石伊恩被捕的具体情节仍不得而知，且不清楚英国与中国政府之间进行了怎样的沟通。英国外交部拒绝置评。

Mr. Stones’s detention coincides with a period in which the British government has taken a tougher line on China, often siding with the United States’ critical positions. In 2020, it banned Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment company, from involvement in Britain’s new high-speed wireless network, a decision that Beijing condemned.

石伊恩遭到拘留时，恰逢英国政府对中国采取更为强硬的态度，经常支持美国的批评立场。2020年，英国禁止中国电信设备公司华为参与其新高速无线网络的建设，北京对该决定予以谴责。

London’s ties with Beijing have also deteriorated over China’s continuing suppression of civil rights in Hong Kong, a former British colony. Britain has also criticized China over its repression of Muslims in the Xinjiang region, its military pressure on Taiwan and its continued partnership with Russia despite the war in Ukraine.

伦敦与北京的关系也因为中国不断打压英国前殖民地香港的民权而恶化。英国还批评了中国对新疆地区穆斯林的压迫、中国对台湾的军事施压，以及在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后仍与其保持伙伴关系的做法。