Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged Monday to provide 130 billion yen ($927.4 million) in loans to Indonesia for its mass rapid transit system project and tollway infrastructure.
During their in-person summit on the resort island of Bali, Kishida agreed with Indonesian President Joko Widodo that the two nations will sign the deal in the near future, the Japanese government said.
Kishida's announcement came as Japan has been trying to thwart China's apparent efforts to bolster its economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region, where tensions between Beijing and democratic countries have been intensifying.
Japanese and Indonesian leaders also confirmed that the two nations will work together to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific, a vision promoted by Tokyo to counter to China's growing regional assertiveness.
On Sunday, Kishida criticized China by name for stepping up actions that infringe on Japan's sovereignty in the East China Sea, at an annual summit in Cambodia of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its partners.
He is visiting Bali to attend the two-day Group of 20 summit through Wednesday. Indonesia is the host of this year's G-20 meetings.
According to the government, Kishida and Widodo agreed to work together toward the success of the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May next year. The prime minister is a lawmaker representing a constituency in the western Japan city that was destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb dropped in 1945.
Alongside G-7 members -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States plus the European Union -- the G-20 also includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey.
Later Monday, Kishida exchanged views with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on security threats from China and North Korea, which has launched a spate of ballistic missiles since the beginning of this year in violation of U.N. resolutions.
As for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Kishida and the head of the executive branch of the European Union agreed that the international community should join hands to prevent President Vladimir Putin from using nuclear weapons against its neighbor.
Kishida also held talks in Bali with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Rwanda was invited to Bali as a representative of Africa.
On Monday, meanwhile, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said Kishida is set to hold a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week, in what would be the first summit between the two countries in roughly three years.
Matsuno, the government's top spokesman, told reporters in Tokyo that during their summit on Thursday in Thailand that Japan will "assert what needs to be asserted" to China, but stressed both nations need to work to build a "constructive and stable" relationship.
In Cambodia, Kishida, who took office in October 2021, met Sunday with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and agreed to work for an early settlement over wartime labor issues that brought bilateral ties to their lowest point in decades.
The summit was the first official meeting between leaders of Japan and South Korea -- U.S. security allies in Asia -- in almost three years.
Kishida also met bilaterally with U.S. President Joe Biden before a trilateral summit involving Yoon, confirming they would reinforce their security alliance.
In Bali, Biden on Monday held his first face-to-face talks with Xi, who secured an unprecedented third five-year term in power at the ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress in October.
