Kantaro Komiya
YahooMon, 28 Mar 2022 07:13 UTC
Japan will revise its foreign exchange law to prevent Russia from evading Western financial sanctions following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine through cryptocurrency assets, top government officials said on Monday.
The government will submit a revision of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act to the current parliament session to strengthen protections
against potential sanction-busting by Russia through digital assets, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said in a press conference.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also called for the law to be amended in a Monday parliament session, where he
stressed the need for coordinated moves with Western allies after attending last week's Group of Seven summit in Belgium.
A finance ministry official told Reuters discussions were under way about the proposed amendment, saying he could not provide further details.
The revision "presumably enables the government to apply the law to crypto-asset exchanges like banks and oblige them to scrutinise whether their clients are Russian sanction targets," said Saisuke Sakai, senior economist at Mizuho Research and Technologies.
Following the invasion of Ukraine,
the Japanese government has slapped asset-freeze sanctions on more than 100 Russian officials, oligarchs, banks and other institutions. Japan has also banned high-tech exports and revoked the most-favoured nation trade status for Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation".
Earlier this month, Japan's financial regulatory body demanded about 30 crypto exchanges in the country not to conduct asset transactions with sanction targets.
A legislative revision is a stronger step to implement such regulations. According to economist Sakai, Kishida's government probably developed the legal revision plan given Western authorities' stricter rules on the subject, as well as high Japanese public support for sanctioning Russia.
Comment: Top War
reports - also
confirmed by RT - that it's unclear whether this law change will include
all of Russia's foreign assets held in Japan:
It became known about the pressure that the United States is exerting on Japan in terms of pushing for the freezing of Russian foreign exchange assets. To date, the currency assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which the United States calls on Japan to freeze, amount to about 33 billion in dollar terms. However, Japan is in no hurry to do so. Moreover, there was an official comment from the main financial department of Japan, which is unlikely to please the White House.
The head of the Japanese Ministry of Finance, Shuniti Suzuki, during a speech in the country's parliament, said that Japan does not have a law that would allow freezing foreign assets.
"Our legislation, including the law on the Bank of Japan, does not provide for any freezing of foreign currency assets of foreign central banks. We cannot requisition such assets if they are held by our Central Bank."
Recall that Japan previously supported the main part of anti-Russian sanctions, after which Moscow announced its refusal to further discuss any issues related to the signing of a peace treaty. This statement by the Russian authorities became a real cold shower for official Tokyo, because in this case the "window of opportunity" (as they said in Japan itself) is closed in terms of discussing the issue of the South Kuriles.
In addition, Japan faces a choice - whether to buy gas from Russia for rubles or refuse Russian fuel imports. If there is a refusal, it will deal a blow to the Japanese economy, since in recent years Japanese companies (especially in the north of the country) have been actively increasing the volume of use of Russian LNG.
Evidently there are factions in Japan subservient to the West, and there are others that are less eager to sabotage their economy for the ailing US hegemon and their hybrid-war against Russia:
Comment: Top War reports - also confirmed by RT - that it's unclear whether this law change will include all of Russia's foreign assets held in Japan: Evidently there are factions in Japan subservient to the West, and there are others that are less eager to sabotage their economy for the ailing US hegemon and their hybrid-war against Russia: