The U.S. is planning to build a boat maintenance facility at a Philippine naval detachment near the disputed South China Sea.

The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command issued a public solicitation for the design and construction of the new facility at Oyster Bay in the western province of Palawan, Washington’s embassy in Manila said in a statement on July 16.

The planned facility will be used to repair and maintain several small Philippine military watercraft and will include two interior rooms for equipment storage or conference use, according to the statement.

“The boat maintenance facility is not a military base,” the embassy said, adding that the Philippine government approved it following local regulations.

The project shows how the U.S. and the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are strengthening their defense alliance, in the face of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. Under Marcos, the U.S. gained expanded access to Philippine military bases and deployed weapons to the Southeast Asian nation.

Growing U.S.-Philippine ties have irked China, which claims almost the entirety of the energy-rich waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling invalidating these claims.