from article: "The English-language version of the encyclopedia speaks of a Japanese shipwreck off Taiwan in 1871, in which 54 crew members were beheaded by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan demanded compensation from China, only to be told that Taiwan was not within China's jurisdiction. The Chinese-language entry on Taiwan, meanwhile, is silent on the jurisdiction question."
learn something new every day
Wikipedia is useless for anything but sports statistics.
For a detailed account of the shipwreck of the Okinawan sailors in 1871 and the political issues involved (They technically werent Japanese citizens since Okinawa would not be part of Japan until nearly 2 decades later), you'll need JSTOR database access, but there is a summary available here.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X(1983)17%3A2%3C257%3ATQIEAJ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G