YAN ZHUANG, 艾莎2026年8月20日2017年，恒大集团创始人兼前董事长许家印在香港出席新闻发布会。 Bobby Yip/ReutersA court in China on Thursday sentenced the billionaire founder of Evergrande to life in prison, years after the real estate giant’s collapse brought China’s financial system to the brink.周四，中国一家法院判处恒大集团亿万富翁创始人无期徒刑。数年前，这家房地产巨头的崩盘曾将中国金融体系推向崩溃边缘。Hui Ka Yan, the company’s founder and former chairman, pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including fund-raising fraud, misuse of funds and securities fraud.恒大创始人兼前董事长许家印于今年4月对多项指控表示认罪，包括集资诈骗、违法运用资金和欺诈发行证券。The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court found that between 2016 and 2021, Mr. Hui and Evergrande engaged in large-scale financial fraud and committed crimes including misuse of funds, fund-raising fraud and illegally taking public deposits, according to an announcement the court posted on social media.根据深圳市中级人民法院在社交媒体上发布的通告，法院认定，在2016年至2021年期间，许家印及恒大集团进行了大规模财务造假，并犯有违法运用资金、集资诈骗和非法吸收公众存款等罪行。The court ordered Mr. Hui’s assets seized and fined Evergrande Group and its subsidiary, Evergrande Real Estate Group, a combined $2.35 billion. His appearance in court, dressed in a navy blue shirt with a flash of white hair, was the first time Mr. Hui had been seen since he disappeared from public view in 2023.法院下令没收许家印的资产，并对恒大集团及其子公司恒大地产处以总计158.2亿元的罚款。许家印身穿藏蓝色上衣出现在法庭上，满头白发，这是他自2023年从公众视野消失以来首次公开露面。Evergrande was once China’s fastest-growing property developer, but its collapse in 2021 under more than $300 billion of debt pushed China’s financial system to the edge and exposed the vulnerabilities of the country’s economy — especially its dependency on real estate as a driver of growth.恒大曾是中国增长最快的房地产开发商，但其在2021年因超过2万亿元的债务破产，将中国金融体系推向边缘，并暴露了中国经济的脆弱性，尤其是对房地产作为经济增长引擎的依赖。No other company played as big a role in China’s staggering real estate boom, and its crash marked the beginning of a prolonged crisis that is still being felt across the economy.在中国令人瞠目的房地产繁荣中，没有其他任何公司扮演过如此重大的角色，它的崩盘则标志着一场持续危机的开始，这场危机至今仍在影响着整个经济。The court found that Mr. Hui bore responsibility for Evergrande Group’s operations and should be punished severely because his actions and those of the company “seriously disrupted the socialist market economic order,” according to its social media post.根据法院发布的社交媒体通告，法院认定许家印对恒大集团的运营负有责任，应当予以严惩，因为他及该公司的行为“严重破坏社会主义市场经济秩序”。“The amount involved in the crime is exceptionally large, the circumstances are particularly heinous, exceptionally heavy economic losses have been caused, and the harm to society is extremely grave,” the court said.法院表示：“犯罪数额特别巨大，情节特别恶劣，造成特别重大经济损失，社会危害特别严重。”Mr. Hui founded Evergrande in 1996 in the southern city of Guangzhou, just as China was beginning to urbanize and move people from the countryside into the cities. The company’s success turned Mr. Hui into one of the world’s richest people and he expanded his empire to include a soccer team and an electric vehicle company.1996年，许家印在南方城市广州创立了恒大集团，当时中国正开始城市化进程，大量人口从农村涌入城市。公司的成功使许家印成为全球最富有的人之一，随后他将商业帝国拓展至足球队和电动汽车公司等领域。But by 2020, Beijing was growing worried that its property boom — the biggest the world has ever seen — was threatening the financial system because property developers like Evergrande had borrowed so heavily from local governments and banks. To cool the market, officials began restricting how much developers could borrow, cutting debt-burdened companies like Evergrande off from the cash they needed to fund their operations.但到了2020年，北京日益担心这场世界上规模最大的房地产繁荣正威胁到金融体系，因为像恒大这样的房企向地方政府和银行大量借债。为给市场降温，官方开始限制开发商的借贷额度，切断了像恒大这样负债累累的公司维持日常运营所需的资金来源。When Evergrande collapsed in 2021, much of the blame was placed on Beijing. But the company had been borrowing beyond its means for years and had engaged in questionable accounting and poor oversight that led to a series of unusual events, including the disappearance of $2 billion.2021年恒大崩盘时，许多责难指向北京。但实际上该公司多年来一直过度借贷，并存在可疑的会计操作和监管不力问题，导致了一系列异常事件的发生，包括20亿美元的凭空消失。The company was forced into liquidation by a Hong Kong court in 2024. The Shenzhen court on Thursday also sentenced 56 other people, including Mr. Hui’s two sons, to terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years.恒大于2024年被香港法院强行清算。周四，深圳法院还对包括许家印两个儿子在内的另外56人进行了判决，刑期从22个月到18年不等。Siyi Zhao对本文有研究贡献。Yan Zhuang是时报驻首尔记者，报道突发新闻。艾莎(Alexandra Stevenson)是《纽约时报》上海分社社长，报道中国经济和社会新闻。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。