 The Meiji government of Japan demanded that the Qing government of China punish leaders of the Taiwanese aborigines responsible for the murders of the Ryukyuan crew.The Japanese foreign minister Soejima Taneomi went to Beijing in June 1873, and was received in an audience by the Tongzhi Emperor (in itself a diplomatic triumph); however, his request for compensation was first rejected because China considered it an internal affair since Taiwan was part of Fujian Province of China and the Ryūkyū Kingdom had a tributary relationship with China.When Soejima Taneomi claimed four of the victims murdered were from Oda Prefecture, present-day Okayama Prefecture, Japan and asked for compensation again, Chinese officials refused him on the grounds that most of the Taiwanese aboriginals were outside effective Chinese control, and were thus sometimes exempt from judicial action.