In 1940, Japanese military interest in Southeast Asia increased, because the British were overtly providing military assistance to Nationalist China against which Japan was fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War. In particular, they were sending war materials via the newly opened Burma Road. Colonel Suzuki Keiji, a staff officer at the Imperial General HQ in Japan, was given the task of devising a strategy for dealing with Southeast Asia. He produced a plan for clandestine operations in Burma, which was then a British colony.