Japan minister joins crowds at controversial shrine to mark 80 years since world war defeat

(Corrects paragraph 2 spelling of Koizumi’s first name)

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan marked the 80th anniversary of its World War Two defeat on Friday, with at least one cabinet minister joining thousands of visitors at a shrine that Japan’s Asian neighbours view as a symbol of its wartime aggression.

Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan’s agriculture minister and a contender in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race last year, arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo early Friday, local media reported.

Among the 2.5 million war dead commemorated at the shrine are 14 wartime leaders convicted of the most serious war crimes, along with over 1,000 others found guilty by Allied tribunals after Japan’s 1945 defeat.

China and South Korea have criticised past visits by senior Japanese officials t