Chinese President Xi Jinping told his country’s troops to focus their "minds and energy on preparing for war" while visiting a military base earlier this week, CNN reports.

State news agency Xinhua reports that Xi, while inspecting the People's Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, on Tuesday, said that "the Marine Corps should focus on preparing for war and combat capabilities, and maintain a high level of readiness."

Xi added that soldiers must be "absolutely loyal, absolutely pure, and absolutely reliable."

He also said, "Marines have many different missions and the demands on you will vary. As such [you] should base your training on [the need to] go into battle … and raise [your] training standards and combat ability."

Xi is set to deliver a speech in Guangdong on Wednesday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, a move that helped propel China’s economy to become one of the largest in the world.

Tensions have risen between the U.S. and China recently over improving relations between the U.S. and Taiwan, which Beijing has said in the past it would be willing to use force to get under control. A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry told the South China Morning Post last week that "the United States should immediately cancel the planned weapon sales to Taiwan, stop any arms deals and cut off their military ties."

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