" Hong Kong (CNN)Xi Jinping began his second term as China's president with a blunt warning for Taiwan, an island it views as a breakaway province.

"All acts and tricks to split the motherland are doomed to failure and will be condemned by the people and punished by history," Xi said Tuesday at the close of the National People's Congress, Beijing's rubber-stamp legislature.

"Every inch of our great motherland's territory cannot be separated from China," he said, drawing loud applause from his audience inside the Great Hall of the People.

The tough talk on Taiwan isn't new. But Xi now has the option to serve as president for life, meaning he can execute strategies that last decades rather than years.

That long leash could give Xi opportunity to focus on achieving something that's eluded Chinese Communist leaders for nearly seven decades since the founding of the People's Republic: regaining control of Taiwan.

"Taiwan is very important and he wants to do it within his lifetime," said Willy Lam, a professor at the Center for China Studies at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

"If Xi Jinping can pull off this national reunification by so-called liberating Taiwan, then he has something in the history books," Lam said.

The democratic island of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) is separated from mainland China (the People's Republic) by a thin stretch of water and has been self-governed since a bloody civil war ended in 1949.

Though both Taipei and Beijing view the island as part of China, neither government recognizes the legitimacy of the opposing side, with Beijing warning that it could retake the island by force if necessary.

A renewed focus by Xi on Taiwan would put China on a collision course with the United States, which has diplomatic relations only with Beijing but maintains close unofficial links with Taipei.

Washington also provides arms to the island under the Taiwan Relations Act, and has signaled closer ties with Taiwan after President Donald Trump signed a bill Friday that aims to make it easier for US officials to visit the island and Taiwan officials to visit the US.

Zhang Baohui, a professor of political science at Lingnan University in Hong Kong said that Taiwan could be part of Xi's motive for removing restrictions on term limits but it's not an issue he's likely to move on in the near term.

"His most important priority is domestic politics. Externally, Taiwan is secondary compared to US-Sino relations, the Korean peninsula and boosting China's leadership role in the world."

For now, what he wants is to deter Taiwan from greater independence, Zhang said, but that calculation could change should the balance of power shift between the US and China.

"After 20 years, by 2040, if China's achieved military parity then it may be feasible if they could win at a low cost."

One of China's top military leaders, Han Weiguo, the commander of the Chinese military's ground forces, said last week that Taiwan should be reunited by peaceful means but warned: "That doesn't mean the problem could be postponed indefinitely. It should be solved as quickly as possible," Han said, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

A pillar of Xi's leadership has been his promise of returning China to its former glory, before Western powers dealt the country a humiliating blow, starting in the Opium Wars of the 1800s, and the chaos that engulfed China throughout the early 20th Century.

Part of that promise is steeped in nationalism, and there's perhaps no other issue that whips up more nationalist fervor inside China than the issue of Taiwan.

Straying from the policy of "One China," which has governed relations between Beijing, Taipei and Washington for decades, can lead to serious consequences.

Companies like Marriott, Zara and Delta all had their websites blocked by China's censors in January after authorities found they listed Taiwan as a separate country.

The same sensitivity can be seen in Beijing's furious response to the Taiwan Travel Act, which Trump signed into law with little fanfare Friday.

The new law encourages US government officials of all levels to travel to Taiwan for official meetings and vice versa. While it has no binding legal force, it's symbolically supportive of Taiwan. Beijing has often called on the US to block visits by Taiwan's political leaders.  "

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