Senior foreign and defense officials from Japan and the United States plan to meet in Tokyo this week to coordinate their responses to the Ukraine crisis, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.
The director-general level meeting is also intended to bolster the bilateral alliance to better cope with closer defense cooperation between China and Russia in East Asia, the sources said.
Japan has underscored the importance of coordination with its longtime ally, the United States, and other Group of Seven nations, in implementing punitive measures against Russia's aggression in the neighboring country.
Russia's use of force has drawn a sharp rebuke from the West, which sees it as a violation of international law, though China has refrained from condemning the attack.
The aggression has heightened concerns about the implications for other regions beyond Europe. Japan has explicitly said that any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force should not be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific region, where China is expanding its clout.
Keiichi Ichikawa, director general of the North American Affairs Bureau of the Foreign Ministry, and Kazuo Masuda, director general of the Defense Policy Bureau at the Defense Ministry, will represent Japan in the coming meeting.
The U.S. side will be led by Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, the sources said.
Japan on Tuesday decided to implement further sanctions against Russia and Belarus over Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, freezing assets held by their government officials and other entities.
As Russia escalates its attack on Ukraine with Belarus "clearly involved," Japan will ban exports of oil refining equipment to Russia and dual-use products to Belarus, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference.
According to the Japanese government, 32 Russian and Belarusian individuals, such as government officials and business magnates, along with 12 entities, including military-related companies, were added to the list of those facing asset freezes in Japan.
Tokyo also designated the Belarusian Defense Ministry and a Minsk-based military semiconductor maker as subject to sanctions, banning the receipt of payments from them by Japanese exporters from March 15.
"Our nation will continue to collaborate with the Group of Seven (nations) and the international community toward an improvement in the situation," Matsuno said.
Japan has joined Western countries that have imposed a series of economic sanctions on Russia and Belarus, including asset freezes on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
They have also excluded seven of Russia's banks from the SWIFT global payments network to disrupt its trade and money transfers.
As for Russia's release on Monday of a list of "unfriendly" countries that included Japan, Matsuno said Tokyo had lodged a protest with Moscow, saying, "It is regrettable that a measure which could work to the detriment of (Japan's) citizens and firms was announced."
The list allows the Russian government, firms and individuals to pay foreign currency debts owed to creditors from the unfriendly countries in Russian rubles, and obligates all business deals with companies and individuals from the listed nations to secure government approval.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said Japan will continue working with other nations to beef up countermeasures against illicit money transfers, such as those using cryptocurrencies, amid concern that such transactions could be employed to bypass sanctions on Russia.
The government will promote efforts to ensure the effectiveness of the sanctions to "impose maximum costs on Russia," Suzuki told a separate news conference.
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