Japan will acquire 400 Tomahawk missiles by USAPrime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Monday as the archipelago seeks to bolster its defenses against Chinese threats in the region.

“Our country’s plan is to (buy) 400 of these cruise missiles,” Kishida told the House of Representatives budget committee, without elaborating further.

A few days ago, the defense minister said that Japan had a reservation $1.5 billion to buy missiles in the next fiscal yearafter years of cutting back on these types of acquisitions.

Japan’s government presented a sweeping defense reform in December that will double its defense budget to 2% of GDP by 2027, labeling China as “the biggest strategic challenge” to the country’s security.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised fears that the Asian giant will do something similar to Taiwan, an autonomous and democratic island claimed by Beijing.

This is a major turning point for the Japanese archipelago, whose pacifist constitution, adopted after its defeat in World War II, basically forbids having a full-fledged army.