* Japan tells U.S. concerned about yen rises
* U.S. Lew doesn't see disorderly FX moves
* Japan lobbies to keep G20 warning vs excess volatility
* Onus to keep yen rises in check may fall on BOJ
By Leika Kihara
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - Japan's efforts to seek informal consent to act against an unwelcome yen rise bore little fruit, with the United States offering a cool response to concerns voiced by Tokyo that the currency's gains are too sharp and may justify intervention.
A lack of G20 sympathy for Tokyo's appeal may embolden yen bulls to test the currency's 17-month highs against the dollar hit earlier this month, keeping Japanese policymakers on edge to contain the damage on a fragile, export-reliant economy.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday he did not see any disorderly moves in the currency market, a day after his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso conveyed to him Tokyo's "strong concern" over what it saw as "one-sided" yen rises.
"At a time of slow and uneven global growth, avoiding beggar-thy-neighbor exchange rate policies is particularly important," Lew said in a statement to the International Monetary Fund's steering committee on Saturday.
"Surplus countries especially have a responsibility to adopt stronger adjustment measures to avoid reliance on the exchange rate to support demand," he said, signaling that Washington was in no mood to allow Tokyo to conduct yen-selling intervention.
In a communique issued on Friday, the G20 finance leaders maintained a warning on countries to refrain from competitive currency devaluation and signaled that markets have calmed from the past few months of turbulence.
The G20 also reiterated that excess currency volatility was undesirable, but only after heavy lobbying by Japanese delegates who want to use the language to justify stepping into the market if they see yen gains as excessive.
Tokyo won't be engaging in competitive currency devaluation as long as any yen-selling intervention is brief and aimed at smoothing abrupt yen rises, a senior Japanese finance ministry official told reporters after the G20 gatherings.
LITTLE SYMPATHY
European Central Bank officials share Japan's unhappiness over the dollar's weakening, though they accept it as a natural consequence of the Federal Reserve's cautious economic outlook and see no reason to act to weaken the euro.
Others also did not see broad dollar falls as a concern.
"We are in a situation where the world is working its way through a lower commodity price scenario and that's where we'll have countries that are exporters have (their currencies) tend to decline, and those that import ... tend to rise," Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said on Friday.