China’s “reunification” with Taiwan is inevitable, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s address on Sunday.

“The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” Xi said, according to Reuters. Though the official English translation of his remarks published by the Xinhua news agency used a more simple phrase: “China will surely be reunified”.

“All Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” he further said.

Last year, Xi said only that people on either side of the strait are “members of one and the same family” and that he hoped people on both sides will work together to “jointly foster lasting prosperity of the Chinese nation”.

China considers Taiwan to be its “sacred territory” and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under Chinese control.