Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would �surely be reunified� with Taiwan during his televised New Year�s address, renewing Beijing�s threats to take over the self-ruled island, which it considers its own.

Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to regard the island of 23 million with its high-tech economy as Chinese territory and has been ramping up its threat to achieve that by military force if necessary.

�China will surely be reunified, and all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose,� Xi said in his annual address, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

China has described Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections as a choice between war and peace.

Beijing considers the presidential front-runner, William Lai, who currently serves as vice president from the ruling Democratic People�s Party, a �separatist� and has accused him and Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen of trying to provoke a Chinese attack on the island.

On Saturday, Chen Binhua, spokesman for China�s Taiwan Affairs Office, called Lai a �destroyer of peace� following a televised debate earlier that day in which Lai defended Taiwan�s right to rule itself as a democracy.

Chen said Lai�s discourse at the debate was �full of confrontational thinking,� adding that the vice president is �the instigator of a potential dangerous war in the Taiwan Strait.�

Lai had said during the debate that Taiwan is not subordinate to China and that he was open to communications with Beijing �as long as there is equality and dignity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.� While Lai doesn�t describe himself as seeking independence from Beijing, he generally maintains Taiwan is already an independent country.

Lai�s election rivals include Hou Yu-ih from the more China-friendly Kuomintang party, and Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People�s Party.

(AP)