TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told The Guardian he fundamentally disagrees with China treating the Taiwan Strait as a domestic matter, reports said Wednesday (April 19).

The chief of the United Kingdom’s diplomacy was speaking after the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Japan, and a week ahead of a major speech about his government’s foreign and defense policies.

Cleverly defended a peaceful resolution of differences across the Taiwan Strait and offered a “mild rebuke” to recent comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, according to The Guardian. Peace between Taiwan and China is “in everybody’s interest across the whole world,” Cleverly said.

He also hinted that once his country joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it might try to block China from joining. While Cleverly did not mention the communist country by name, he said the trade bloc should not allow high standards to be diluted.