Chinese President Xi Jinping told the country’s army to be ready for war as the country faces an increasingly unstable and uncertain security situation.

What happened: Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during a visit to the commission’s joint command center in September.

“The task of military struggle is arduous and difficult,” Xi said. reported the South China Morning Post, citing state broadcaster CCTV.

See also: Justin Trudeau says Xi Jinping is playing “aggressive games” amid reports of China’s interference in Canada’s polls.

“The entire military must … focus on combat capability as the fundamental and sole criterion, focus all energies on waging a war, direct all work on warfare, and accelerate the building of capability for victory,” he added.

Xi’s visit to the command center of the Joint Operations Commission comes at a time of heightened cross-strait tensions. A recent Bloomberg report showed that Chinese warplane raids into sensitive areas near Taiwan had risen to the highest level since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visited three months ago.

After a UK minister’s office confirmed he would visit Taipei this week for trade talks, Chinese president’s mouthpiece lashed out at Britain said it must halt any form of official exchanges with Taiwan, where Beijing claims sovereignty.

Xi has often repeated his proposal for a peaceful “reunification” with the self-governing island nation and has said Taiwan could have its own “social system, different from the mainland.“

American President Joe Biden has before promised to intervene militarily to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.

This story was originally published on November 9, 2022.

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