Chinese regime newspaper the Global Times touted the partnership between British actor Daniel Craig and the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brand BYD this weekend, scolding Europeans questioning his promotion of a Chinese competitor for European EV brands as “contradictory” and retrograde.
BYD is the world’s largest EV manufacturer, announcing that it had surpassed Chinese ally Elon Musk’s Tesla in January 2026. A combination of reliable vehicles — unlike Tesla — and steeply discounted prices have made BYD dominant in international markets, particularly in the United Kingdom, which has not used tariffs to protect its domestic market. The Chinese car manufacturer has faced accusations of enslaving workers, particularly in factories outside the country, and evidence suggests that the disposal of toxic materials and of old and abandoned EVs themselves pose significant threats to the environment.
Despite the many concerns with BYD’s business practices, Craig, known best in China as the first James Bond to have his movies approved for release by the Communist Party, has signed up to be the company’s latest spokesperson. BYD published an advertisement last week in which Craig drives a Z9GT for BYD’s latest brand, Denza, explaining the benefits of the car to a dog that rides with him in the back seat.
“How blessed to live a life in a world with the capacity to find change,” Craig declares.
The Global Times, which regularly promotes Chinese companies that the Communist Party approves of, stated that the campaign appears to be an attempt to “build trust in overseas markets,” conceding that many international consumers do not trust Chinese products.
“James Bond, as a globally recognized character, carries strong associations with high-tech, sporty cars, giving the campaign an immediate European appeal,” the Times proposed.
The state newspaper went on to cite its typical Chinese regime-approved “experts” who lamented the “discomfort or skepticism” towards Chinese products, particularly cars.
“They have not yet fully adapted to the new reality that Chinese cars are now going global and competing on equal footing with established international brands,” one expert, identified as “veteran industry observer” Liu Dingding, told the Global Times. “It takes time to adjust to this shift. Daniel Craig driving a BYD is only the beginning of that adjustment.”
BYD announced in January that it had sold 2.25 million vehicles in 2025, nearly double the number reported by Tesla. Notably, its second-largest market outside of China is the United Kingdom. Sales of BYD vehicles grew by 880 percent in 2025 in the U.K., the company reported. BYD has struggled more in the European Union as the coalition imposed tariffs on Chinese vehicles to protect domestic companies. EU tariffs were raised to up to 38 percent in 2024 in response to an investigation that found that Chinese companies were benefitting unfairly from Communist Party support that allowed them to undercut prices in foreign countries.
“The provisional findings of the EU anti-subsidy investigation indicate that the entire BEV value chain benefits heavily from unfair subsidies in China, and that the influx of subsidized Chinese imports at artificially low prices therefore presents a threat of clearly foreseeable and imminent injury to EU industry,” the EU announced following its probe.
Elsewhere in the world, BYD has struggled to expand operations in the face of accusations of slavery. In April, the government of Brazil added the company to its blacklist of companies that engage in slave labor after a police operation in 2024 uncovered enslaved Chinese nationals working in construction at a BYD plant in the city of Camacari. Brazilian authorities described finding the imported workers trapped in “degrading” conditions unable to leave their labor. The far-left Brazilian court system issued an injunction shortly after the blacklisting to protect BYD, but its reputation remains significantly damaged in the country.
Craig is a familiar face in China due to his promotion of his James Bond movies, which received rare approval from the Chinese government, albeit with censorship, for a widespread release. Casino Royale was the first James Bond movie, nearly half a century after the debut of the British spy character in film, to be released in China. Subsequent Craig films such as Skyfall were also released, but with edits that erased scenes in which the country believed that Chinese people were portrayed negatively.
In 2015, in anticipation of the release of Spectre, Craig debuted as a salesman for Chinese companies during a cameo appearance for “Singles Day,” a consumerist holiday in China during which regime-approved corporations encourage lavish spending with steep sales. Craig appeared during Alibaba’s Singles Day livestream alongside its founder and former CEO Jack Ma, who has since been purged and exiled.
Following Spectre, Craig lamented, “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists” than play James Bond again. By 2020, however, Craig had reprised the role in the film No Time to Die, which he described as featuring themes such as President Donald Trump and “Russian influence on elections or whatever.”