Japan, France, and the United States will hold joint military drills on land and sea for the first time in May next year as the Chinese military steps up activity in the region, the Sankei newspaper said on Sunday, Reuters reported.

The exercises, conducted on one of Japan’s uninhabited outlying islands, will focus on providing relief efforts during a natural disaster, but parts could also form the basis for a defense against attack, the paper said, without citing sources.

Japan’s defense ministry, however, was not immediately available to respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation.

The joint exercises aim to counter China, which claims Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, the paper said.

“We want to demonstrate our presence to the region and send a message about Japan-France cooperation,” Admiral Pierre Vandier, chief of staff of the French navy, told Sankei in a separate interview.