Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Monday a massive new package of measures to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region, pledging to invest tens of billions of dollars in the region, Reuters reported.

The plan, announced in New Delhi on Monday, is seen as Japan’s big bet to build stronger partnerships in South and Southeast Asia amid increasingly assertive Japanese action.

Kishida said the Tokyo government’s new plan for the region is based on “four pillars”: maintaining peace, ensuring the security of seas and airspace, managing new global challenges in cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific region, and achieving global connectivity through various platforms.

Kishida promised that Japan would provide $75 billion in investment and loans to countries and companies in the region, and increase government aid and grants.

The announcement comes after Japan’s defense ministry announced in mid-February that new analysis of unidentified flying objects that have flown over Japan’s airspace in recent years “conclusively” indicates that they are Chinese spy balloons .

Tensions are rising between Japan and China

According to a press release, the Tokyo executive “strongly requested the Chinese government to confirm the facts” of the incident and “to prevent this from happening again.”

“Violations of airspace by foreign unmanned reconnaissance balloons and other means are absolutely unacceptable,” the statement said.

It was just the latest in a series of events that have recently heightened tensions between Tokyo and Beijing amid China’s increasingly bellicose stances and actions.

Last August, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi called for an “immediate end” to Chinese military maneuvers around Taiwan, launched by Beijing in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei.

“This time, China’s actions have a serious impact on peace and stability in the region. I again demand an immediate end to these military maneuvers,” Hayashi told reporters in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, where he was attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

His comments came after China launched an unprecedented series of live-fire military exercises that could have blockaded the island of Taiwan shortly after Pelosi’s departure.

Japan is rearming

In mid-December, the Japanese government announced a radical overhaul of its defense doctrine, specifically to try to counter China’s military might, which is perceived as a security challenge to the archipelago.

As part of its new “national security strategy,” Japan plans to double its annual defense budget from about 1 percent of GDP to 2 percent by 2027.

Thus, Tokyo will join similar commitments already undertaken by NATO member states.

In particular, Japan intends to equip itself with means of “counterattacks”, a concept which until recently was considered incompatible with its Constitution. This will allow it to hit targets in neighboring countries that threaten the archipelago.

Japan’s defense ministry has requested a record new annual budget since late August, pointing out that the world is facing the “biggest challenges since World War II”, directly citing China as well as Russia.

Japan is one of the countries that has joined broad Western sanctions against Russia as tensions between Moscow and Tokyo in turn rise.