The State Department has denounced a Chinese court’s sentencing of a prominent journalist, Dong Yuyu, to seven years in prison and said it stood with his family in calling for his “immediate and unconditional release.”

美国国务院谴责中国判处著名记者董郁玉七年徒刑，并表示与他的家人站在一起，呼吁“立即无条件释放”董郁玉。

A court in Beijing announced the sentence on Friday for his conviction on charges of espionage. Mr. Dong, 62, a former Harvard Nieman fellow, has been held since February 2022, when officers from the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence agency, detained him and a Japanese diplomat while they ate lunch in a restaurant.

上周五，北京一家法院周五宣布了对董郁玉间谍罪的判决。现年62岁的董郁玉曾是哈佛大学尼曼学者，自2022年2月以来一直被关押，当时他和一名日本外交官在一家餐馆吃午饭，两人被中国主要情报机构国家安全部的官员拘留。

The officers released the diplomat after an interrogation, but prosecutors put Mr. Dong on trial behind closed doors in July 2023. He is the most prominent journalist imprisoned in mainland China.

官员在审讯后释放了这名外交官，但检察官在2023年7月对董郁玉进行了非公开审判。他是中国大陆被监禁的最著名记者。

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement on Friday that Mr. Dong’s “arrest and today’s sentencing highlight the P.R.C.’s failure to live up to its commitments under international law and its own constitutional guarantees to all its citizens.” He used the initials of the formal name of the country, the People’s Republic of China.

美国国务院发言人马修·米勒在周五的声明中表示，董郁玉的“被捕和今天的判决，凸显了中华人民共和国未能履行其根据国际法作出的承诺，以及它自己对所有公民的宪法保障”。

“We celebrate Dong’s work as a veteran journalist and editor, as well as his contributions to U.S.-P.R.C. people-to-people ties, including as a Harvard University Nieman fellow,” Mr. Miller added. “We stand by Dong and his family and call for his immediate and unconditional release.”

“我们赞扬董作为一名资深记者和编辑的工作，以及他对美中民间关系的贡献，包括作为哈佛大学尼曼学者的贡献，”米勒还说。“我们支持董和他的家人，呼吁立即无条件释放他。”

R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China and a former Harvard professor, also issued a statement of condemnation, calling the sentencing “unjust.”

美国驻华大使、前哈佛大学教授尼古拉斯·伯恩斯也发表了谴责声明，称判决“不公正”。

Mr. Dong’s case could become a bigger flashpoint under the administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has vowed to take a confrontational approach to China. Senator Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, has crafted legislation that would punish China for its human rights abuses. Mr. Rubio is a former co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which lists Mr. Dong as a prisoner “of priority concern” and urges action on his case by the White House.

候任总统特朗普曾经放话要对中国采取对抗态度，因此董郁玉的案件可能会成为他执政后的一个更大引爆点。参议员马可·卢比奥是特朗普的国务卿人选，他已起草立法，将惩罚中国的侵犯人权行为。卢比奥曾是国会-行政部门中国委员会的联合主席，该委员会将董郁玉列为“优先关注”的入狱者，并敦促白宫对他的案件采取行动。

北京市第二中级人民法院，董郁玉因间谍罪被拘留后在此接受判决。

Mr. Dong was a longtime editor and writer for Guangming Daily, the Communist Party’s leading newspaper for intellectual ideas, but he was not a party member.

董郁玉曾长期担任共产党主要的知识分子思想类报纸《光明日报》的编辑和撰稿人，但他不是党员。

Soon after starting at the newspaper, he took part in the 1989 pro-democracy protests, which ended with the military’s killing of hundreds or even thousands of civilians, and was sentenced to a year of hard labor in a steel factory. He returned to his job afterward, and through the decades wrote articles and columns on the need for China to embrace more liberal ideas and be more open to the outside world.

在加入报社后不久，他参加了1989年的民主抗议活动，这场抗议以军队杀害数百乃至数千名平民而告终，他因此被判在钢铁厂服苦役一年。之后，他回到工作岗位，在接下来的几十年里一直在撰写文章和专栏，强调中国需要接受更多自由思想、对外界更加开放。

He spent 2006 to 2007 at Harvard as a Nieman fellow, a prestigious appointment for American and international journalists. He later did a fellowship and a visiting professorship in Japan, and also occasionally wrote essays for foreign publications, including the Chinese edition of The New York Times. (I first met Mr. Dong and his family on a visit to Harvard and kept in touch with them after I was posted to Beijing for The Times in 2008. I did a Nieman fellowship later, and mentioned Mr. Dong’s case in my new book on China.)

2006年至2007年，他作为尼曼学者在哈佛度过，这是一个面向美国和国际记者、享有盛誉的身份。后来，他在日本担任研究员和客座教授，偶尔也为外国出版物写文章，包括《纽约时报》中文网。（我第一次见到董郁玉和他的家人是在哈佛，2008年，我被派往北京为时报工作后，我和他们一直保持着联系。后来我也获得了尼曼奖学金，并在我关于中国的新书中提到了董郁玉的案子。）

Mr. Dong’s harsh sentence comes at time of contradictions in the policies of the autocratic Xi Jinping, China’s leader. On the one hand, he has been trying to keep U.S.-China diplomacy stable and is encouraging some foreigners to live and work in China to boost its slowing economy. On the other, he has told Chinese citizens to report potential spies and has empowered his security agencies to arrest so-called subversives, whether justified or not.

对董郁玉的严厉判决正值中国威权领导人习近平的政策出现矛盾之际。一方面，他一直在努力保持美中外交稳定，并鼓励一些外国人在中国生活和工作，以提振中国不断放缓的经济；另一方面，他让中国公民举报潜在的间谍，并授权安全机构逮捕所谓的颠覆分子，无论是否有正当理由。

Mr. Dong’s sentencing appears intended to force a limiting of contacts between Chinese citizens and foreigners. Mr. Dong met openly with diplomats from Japan and the United States, as well as with international scholars, journalists and other foreigners.

对董郁玉的判决似乎意在强制限制中国公民与外国人的接触。董郁玉与日本和美国的外交官，以及海外学者、记者和其他外国人在公开场合碰面。

The judgment read aloud in court on Friday accused the Japanese Embassy in Beijing of being an “espionage organization” and named several Japanese diplomats Mr. Dong knew, including a former Japanese ambassador and the current chief diplomat in Shanghai, as agents, according to a statement from Mr. Dong’s family. The Japanese foreign ministry has said its diplomatic missions engage in “legitimate duties carried out by diplomats.”

根据董郁玉家人的声明，周五在法庭上宣读的判决书指控日本驻北京大使馆是一个“间谍组织”，并将董郁玉认识的几名日本外交官列为间谍，包括前日本大使和现任驻上海首席外交官。日本外务省表示，其外交使团从事的是“外交官履行的合法职责”。

Mr. Dong’s wife lives in Beijing, and his son in Washington. The son, Yifu Dong, graduated from Yale University and Boston University School of Law. The family plans to appeal the verdict and sentence and said that, in any case, China should release Mr. Dong on humanitarian grounds, given his age and a liver condition that has required monitoring during his detention.

董郁玉的妻子住在北京，儿子住在华盛顿。董郁玉的儿子董一夫毕业于耶鲁大学和波士顿大学法学院。家人计划对判决和刑期提出上诉，他们表示，无论如何，鉴于董郁玉的年龄和在押期间肝脏状况需要监测，中国应基于人道主义理由释放董郁玉。

They said the sentence was a “grave injustice” to “every freethinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world.”

他们说，这一判决对“每一位思想自由的中国记者和每一位致力于与世界友好交往的普通中国人”来说，都是“严重的不公正”。

This week, China and the United States did a prisoner swap in which China released three imprisoned American citizens and several people who had been prevented from leaving China for years under an exit ban.

上周，中国和美国进行了一次囚犯交换，中国释放了三名被关押的美国公民，以及几名多年来因出境禁令而被禁止离开中国的人。

The National Press Club in Washington has condemned the sentencing of Mr. Dong. And his imprisonment could increase tensions between Harvard University and Chinese leaders, many of whom want their children to attend the university. Mr. Xi’s daughter, Xi Mingze, is a Harvard alumna.

华盛顿的全国记者俱乐部谴责对董郁玉的判决。他的入狱可能会加剧哈佛大学与中国领导人之间的紧张关系，他们中的许多人都希望自己的孩子上这所大学。习近平的女儿习明泽是哈佛校友。

Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, said Mr. Dong “is a cherished member of the international Nieman fellows community, where he is known for the care and diligence he has brought to his writing. We stand with many in hoping for a speedy reversal of this harsh decision so he may return to his family as soon as possible.”

哈佛大学尼曼基金会的负责人安·玛丽·利平斯基表示，董郁玉“是国际尼曼学者群体中备受重视的一员，他以写作时的细心和勤奋而闻名。我们与许多人站在一起，希望这一严厉的决定能够尽快撤销，让他可以尽快回到家人身边”。