By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING, Dec. 13 (Reuter) - China Wednesday jailed its most prominent dissident, Wei Jingsheng, for 14 years for subversive acts, raising a firestorm of criticism around the world.

Within hours of Wei's sentencing for acts which included fund-raising for what Chinese state media branded as pro-democracy activities, the United States, Britain, France and Germany condemned his conviction and urged his release.

A 1995 Nobel Peace Prize nominee widely regarded as a prime mover in China's modern democracy movement, the 46-year-old Wei was also stripped of his political rights for three years, but spared a possible death sentence. He has already spent much of his adult life in prison.

The former Beijing Zoo electrician was found to have sold articles to overseas media attacking the Chinese government and calling for Tibet's independence, state radio said. Analysts called the trial a warning against dissent.

A relative said Wei would certainly appeal.

"He's innocent. What's there to admit?" the relative told Reuters by telephone, saying that Wei pleaded innocent but did not dispute part of the evidence presented by the court.

He has 10 days to appeal, a court spokesman said.

Wei initially appeared to be in good health but fell ill during the five-hour trial and was given medicine by a doctor during a 30-minute break, the relative said on condition of anonymity.

In Washington, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights John Shattuck urged Beijing to show clemency. "The United States condemns the decision to convict Wei Jingsheng," Shattuck said in a statement read at a news conference.

A bipartisan Congressional group also denounced the sentence and said China would suffer unless Wei was freed immediately.

"China's image is going to suffer dearly if Wei is not released immediately," Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told a news conference. "This issue will not go away."

Smith said Congress would link China's human rights record with trade unless Wei and other dissidents were released.

"China is dependent on U.S. trade," added Rep. Joe Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Wei's only crime is that he stood up for democracy."

Wei's sister called on the United States to help free her brother. "What will the United States do for my brother?" Wei Shanshan said at a news conference with congressional leaders. She said she feared he might not survive his sentence because he has serious heart problems and high blood pressure.

"If the U.S. can make a strong, effective response to China, it can also help to stop this terrible injustice. It is not only a question of saving Wei Jingsheng, it is also a question of defending thousands of dissidents in China, and fundamental rights of freedom of expression of over 1 billion Chinese people. It is in the long-term interests of the U.S. and world peace," Wei Shanshan added.

Britain said it was "dismayed and concerned" by the heavy jail sentence, France urged Beijing to show leniency in Wei's appeals against the sentence and Germany called for China to free Wei and give its people real freedom of speech.

The human rights organization Amnesty International said Wei's jailing was a mockery of justice and his sentencing an outrage.

Wearing a yellow jacket, the unshackled Wei was guarded by two bailiffs and kept from speaking with his family during his trial. Western reporters were denied access.

State television and radio, in disclosing the verdict to the public, said Wei's conspiratorial acts included "drafting an action plan ... to facilitate financial support for the activities of a democracy movement."

"He attempted to stir up a storm sufficient to shake the current political power," state radio said. "Wei Jingsheng actively connived with people at home and abroad, studying so-called struggle tactics, conspiring to unite the force of illegal groups and waiting in the wings to organize and prepare his conspiracy to subvert the government."

Wei spoke in his own defense, as did his two lawyers.

A veteran China-watcher in a European embassy said Beijing "must be extremely nervous about dissent" and that the verdict may signal political insecurity in the communist government.

"There must be a very complicated situation going on inside the Communist Party in which they want to show internally that they are very hard and not yielding to foreign pressure."

The trial was the first public appearance by China's best-known dissident since he vanished into legal limbo in April 1994 after meeting a senior U.S. human rights official.

Wei, imprisoned in the late 1970s, spoke out a new against one-party Communist rule during a half year of freedom in late 1993 and early 1994.

The veteran dissident was first jailed in the Democracy Wall era after proposing that senior leader Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations drive needed a fifth component -- Western-style multiparty democracy.

Much of his imprisonment was spent in solitary confinement.

Under strong international pressure for his release, China paroled Wei in late 1993 after he had served all but six months of a 15-year prison term for "counter-revolutionary" crimes, or subversion, and for selling military secrets.