During the Un'yo crisis Li Hongzhang had guaranteed Mori Arinori, who was sent to Tianjin by the Gaimusho to discuss the situation in Korea, that the Qing would not intervene beyond the level of providing friendly advice. It was during – not before – the Imo crisis that the Japanese recognised that the Qing decision-makers were serious about maintaining their influence as the traditional suzerain over Korea. After the Imo incident, many Japanese individuals started to watch the Qing actions in Korea with stronger suspicion than before. The Imo incident caused British observers, both inside and outside of the government, to recognise that the Qing ministers took its claim of traditional suzerainty more seriously than they had expected. British observers – the senior officials of the government bureaucracy, diplomats, and newspaper correspondents – therefore reappraised Qing power in the period between September 1882 and April 1884.