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.

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.

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.

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.