Three Americans who were detained in China have been released in a prisoner swap with Beijing, the Biden administration said on Wednesday. One of the men had been an F.B.I. informant, according to senior U.S. officials.

拜登政府周三表示，在中国被拘押的三名美国人已经通过与北京的囚犯交换获释。美国高级官员称，其中一人曾是联邦调查局的线人。

John Leung, Kai Li and Mark Swidan were heading to the United States on Wednesday after months of diplomatic maneuvering to free them. Mr. Leung and Mr. Li had been held for three years and eight years. Mr. Swidan was held for more than a decade.

经过数月的外交斡旋，梁成运、李凯和马克·斯威丹于周三返回美国。梁成运和李凯分别被关押了三年和八年。斯威丹被关押了十多年。

“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” said Sean Savett, a National Security Council spokesman. He said no other Americans are “wrongfully detained” in China, a designation that indicates that the U.S. government sees a person as the equivalent of a political hostage or that the charges are fabricated.

“他们很快就能回国，多年来第一次同家人团聚，”国家安全委员会发言人肖恩·萨维特表示。他说，目前没有其他美国人在中国遭“错误拘禁”，这是美国政府对政治人质或遭到捏造指控者的说法。

In return, the United States released Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer serving a 20-year sentence after he was arrested in Brussels in 2018 and extradited to the United States in a dramatic F.B.I. operation, according to two U.S. officials.

据两名美国官员称，作为交换，美国释放了被判20年徒刑的中国情报官员徐延军，他于2018年在布鲁塞尔被捕，在联邦调查局的一次戏剧性行动中被引渡到美国。

On Wednesday, Mr. Xu was listed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system as “not in B.O.P. custody.”

周三，徐延军在联邦监狱局系统的记录中是“不在联邦监狱局羁押中”。

The exchange has been in the works, under intense secrecy, for months. During a global summit in Peru earlier this month, President Biden discussed a potential prisoner swap with Xi Jinping, the leader of China, in a meeting at Mr. Xi’s hotel.

几个月来，交换工作一直在高度保密的情况下进行。本月初在秘鲁举行全球峰会期间，拜登总统在中国领导人习近平主席下榻的酒店与他会晤，双方讨论了交换囚犯的可能性。

Hostage diplomacy has risen in recent years, as tensions between the United States and both China and Russia have grown. Those two superpowers increasingly see detaining U.S. citizens as a way to get back spies, arms dealers and others. The American government has warned U.S. citizens to reconsider travel to those countries or to be alert there.

近年来，随着美国与中国和俄罗斯之间的紧张局势加剧，人质外交有所抬头。这两个超级大国日益把拘押美国公民作为交换间谍、军火商和其他人的筹码。美国政府已警告美国公民重新考虑前往这些国家的旅行，或在当地保持警惕。

For Mr. Biden, the successful negotiations made for a diplomatic win as he tried to cement his legacy in the final weeks of his presidency. And it appeared to validate his strategy on China, which has been to engage in intense competition but also maintain high-level channels of communication for diplomacy on specific issues. But Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Xi is most likely trying to set the stage for relations with the incoming Trump administration.

对于拜登来说，这些谈判的成功是外交上的胜利，在总统任期的最后几周，他正努力巩固自己的政治遗产。这似乎也是在验证他的对华战略：双方激烈竞争的同时，也在具体问题上保持高层外交沟通渠道。但前外交关系委员会主席理查德·哈斯表示，习近平很可能是在做铺垫，与即将到来的特朗普政府发展关系。

“It’s a way to signal a potential for mutually beneficial transactions if you will, which potentially would appeal to somebody like Donald Trump,” Mr. Haass said.

“这是一种暗示：如果你愿意，就有可能进行互利交易，这可能会吸引唐纳德·特朗普这样的人，”哈斯说。

Negotiations over detainees often happen independently of other policy discussions. One example is the 24-prisoner multicountry swap with Russia earlier this year, which went ahead despite tensions between Washington and Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

关于被拘押者的谈判通常独立于其他政策讨论之外。一个例子是今年早些时候与俄罗斯的多国交换，涉及24名囚犯，尽管华盛顿和莫斯科在乌克兰战争问题上关系紧张，但交换仍然进行。

The latest swap was announced as the Americans were in the air, flying back to the United States on Wednesday morning.

最新的这一次交换是在周三上午，三名美国人正在返美飞机上时宣布的。

Mr. Leung, 79, had provided information to the F.B.I. for years about Chinese activities, according to two American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the matter.

据两名因未经授权讨论此事细节而不愿透露姓名的美国官员称，现年79岁的梁成运多年来一直向联邦调查局提供有关中国活动的情报。

He was outwardly pro-Beijing and frequently appeared with Chinese consular officials in Houston, before the Trump administration closed the office in 2020 and said it was a hub of spying. His F.B.I. contacts discouraged him from traveling to China soon afterward, but he went anyway. Chinese authorities arrested him, and in 2023 a court in the city of Suzhou sentenced him to life in prison.

他表面上支持北京，经常与中国驻休斯敦领事馆官员一起露面，直到特朗普政府在2020年关闭该领事馆，并称这里是间谍窝。此后不久，他在联邦调查局的联系人劝阻他不要去中国，但他还是去了。中国当局将其逮捕，2023年，他被苏州一家法院判处无期徒刑。

Mr. Swidan, 49, a Texas businessman, has been held since 2012 on drug-related charges, which his family has said are false.

现年49岁的斯威丹是得克萨斯州的一名商人，自2012年以来一直因与毒品有关的指控被关押，他的家人表示这些指控是虚假的。

Mr. Li, 62, was convicted by a Shanghai court in 2018 of providing state secrets to the F.B.I., according to a report from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

根据联合国任意拘留问题工作组的报告，现年62岁的李凯于2018年被上海一家法院判定向联邦调查局提供国家机密。

Mr. Li’s son, Harrison Li, said his father ran a business selling technology to customers in China. In letters from prison, he had written that U.S. government agents approached him about export compliance. He said that his father believed that the Chinese government used the contact as an excuse to arrest him.

李凯的儿子哈里森·李表示，他的父亲经营着一家向中国客户销售技术的公司。他在狱中写给家人的信中说，美国政府特工曾就出口合规问题与他接触。哈里森·李说，他的父亲认为，中国政府以这次接触为借口逮捕了他。

Mr. Swidan and Mr. Li had been designated by the State Department as wrongfully detained, but Mr. Leung was not, most likely because of his work for the F.B.I. The State Department did not immediately comment on the reason.

斯威丹和李凯被美国国务院认定为错误拘禁，但梁成运却未得到此认定，这很可能是因为他为联邦调查局工作。美国国务院没有立即就原因发表评论。

As for Mr. Xu, he is a rare instance of a trained Chinese spy caught in a complex operation and imprisoned by the Americans. His case was an embarrassment for China: He was lured from his homeland to Belgium in a sting operation by the F.B.I.

徐延军是训练有素的中国间谍，在一次复杂的行动中被美国人抓获并监禁，这样的情况非常罕见。他的案件令中国感到尴尬：他是在联邦调查局的诱捕行动中，从中国被骗到比利时的。

China does not typically do prisoner exchanges, but that may be changing. After Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive of Huawei, the flagship Chinese telecommunications company, in 2018 at the request of the U.S. government, China arrested two Canadian men and charged them with espionage. In 2021, China freed the two men, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, just hours after the Justice Department asked Canada to release Ms. Meng following a legal deal.

中国通常不会进行囚犯交换，但这种情况可能正在改变。2018年，应美国政府的请求，加拿大逮捕了中国主要的电信企业华为的高级管理人员孟晚舟。此后，中国逮捕了两名加拿大男子，指控他们从事间谍活动。2021年，在美国司法部要求加拿大根据法律协议释放孟晚舟几小时后，中国释放了康明凯(Michael Kovrig)和迈克尔·斯帕弗两人。

Mr. Biden has now helped secure the release of more than 70 Americans that the U.S. considered wrongfully detained overseas, according to the White House.

据白宫称，拜登总统现已帮助在海外被错误拘禁的70多名美国人获释。

“This is a moment of joy for the three families,” said Peter Humphrey, a British citizen who was held in China for two years on what he said were phony charges. He added that the Biden administration needed to do more for the many other Americans in prison in China, even if they are not designated as wrongfully detained and never make headlines. “None of them have had fair and impartial and transparent trials.”

“这对三个家庭来说是一个值得高兴的时刻，”英国公民韩飞龙(Peter Humphrey)说。他曾因他称之为莫须有的罪名在中国被关押了两年。他还表示，拜登政府应该为在中国监狱中的其他许多美国人做更多的事情，即使他们没有被认定为错误拘禁，也从未登上新闻。“他们都没有得到公平、公正和透明的审判。”