Shinichi Kitaoka

Shinichi Kitaoka (b. April 20, 1948, 北岡伸一 Kitaoka Shin'ichi) is the president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), former president of the International University of Japan, a professor at Japan's GRIPS-Tokyo School of Security and International Studies and the former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations. His major is the history of Japanese politics and diplomacy, as a political scientist and a historian.

Kitaoka graduated with a B.L. in June 1971 and received his Ph.D. of Law from the University of Tokyo in September 1976.

Kitaoka took a lecturership at Rikkyo University; he became a full professor there in 1985. In 1997, he moved to his current position at the University of Tokyo.

In 2004, he was appointed as Japan's ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, a position he held until 2006 when he returned to academia.

In 2006-2010, Kitaoka was the Japanese chair of the Japan-China Joint History Research Committee. Among other topics, the committee investigated the Nanking Massacre. From 2009-2010, he chaired a Ministry of Foreign Affairs committee on the so-called Secret Agreements between the U.S. and Japan on the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory.

Kitaoka currently is the Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Abe on the possibility of re-interpreting constitutional provisions to allow for collective self-defense.