Kazuo Shii

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.

Kazuo Shii
志位 和夫
Shii in 2017
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 18 July 1993
Constituency	Southern Kanto proportional representation block
Personal details
Born	29 July 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

Early life

Shii was born in Yotsukaidō in Chiba Prefecture, the son of two schoolteachers. 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, he got a 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.

Shii became the party's leader in 2000.[1]

In 2006, Shii became the first JCP chairman to visit South Korea, where he traveled to an international conference of Asian political parties. He visited the site of Seodaemun Prison and paid tribute to the memory of Korean anti-colonial activists who were imprisoned during the period of Japanese colonialism. Shii also met the speaker of the National Assembly, the chairman of the Uri Party, and the floor leader of the Grand National Party.[2]

In 2020, under Shii's leadership, the Japanese Communist Party denounced the Chinese government for its activities in the East China Sea, in the South China Sea, and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.[3] A position paper issued by the party said that China's "great-power chauvinism and hegemonism" were "an adverse current to world peace and progress."[3] At the party's conference in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, Shii said that "the Chinese leadership’s mistake is extremely serious. That action does not deserve the name of the Communist Party."[3] The Japanese and Chinese communist parties had previously been diverging for decades.[3][4]

Interests

Shii plays the piano; he has said music is "a part of [his] life" and seriously considered becoming a musician. When he was about to begin 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.[5]

References

1. Gavin Blair, Communist Party makes a comeback ... in Japan, Christian Science Monitor (August 5, 2013).
2. Editorial: Communist Party head's first visit to Korea, The Hankyoreh (September 12, 2006).
3. "China's Communist Party a threat to peace, says Japanese counterpart". South China Morning Post. 20 January 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
4. Yuri Momoi, Japanese Communist Party's long goodbye to its China comrades, Nikkei Asian Review (February 19, 2020).
5. http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/99/1105/leader.japan.html

External links

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