Kazuo Shii

Kazuo Shii
志位 和夫
Chairman of the Japanese Communist Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 November 2000
Preceded by	Tetsuzō Fuwa
Member of the House of Representatives
Incumbent
Assumed office July 18, 1993
Personal details
Born	July 29, 1954 Yotsukaidō, Japan
Political party	Japanese Communist Party
Alma mater	University of Tokyo
Occupation	Politician and staff of the political party
Website	shii.gr.jp

Kazuo Shii (志位 和夫 Shii Kazuo, born 29 July 1954) is a Japanese politician and Chairman of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) since 2000.

Early life

Shii was born in Yotsukaidō, Chiba Prefecture. He graduated with the Bachelor of Engineering degree in Physics and Engineering from the University of Tokyo. He joined the JCP during his first year at the University and became an active participant in the party's student wing. After graduation from the University of Tokyo, he got his job in the JCP-Tokyo Committee to take charge of youth student movement just like Waseda University. He worked in the Central Committee of the JCP from 1982.

Political career

In 1990 Shii became the head of the Secretariat and was elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 1993. At the party congress in 2000 Shii was elected as party leader.

Shii became the first JCP chairman to visit South Korea and the first Japanese politician to visit the site of Seodaemun Prison. He paid tribute to the memory of Korean anti-colonial activists who were imprisoned during the period of Japanese colonialism.

Interests

Shii plays the piano. Shii claims the music is "a part of my life" and seriously considered becoming a musician. When he was about to enter the university, he considered majoring in music or physics, and chose physics in the end. Shii says his favorite composers are Franz Schubert and Dmitri Shostakovich.^[1]

References

1. http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/99/1105/leader.japan.html

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Kazuo Shii on Twitter
  
  (Japanese)
• Interview with C. B. Liddell in Metropolis magazine. Published January 15, 2009.
• Kazuo Shii: Comments from the Japanese Communist Party on the upcoming election. YouTube video (in English) of Kazuo Shii discussing the Japanese general election, 2014. Uploaded December 8, 2014.