I want to test the ability of students to read a passage and answer questions about it. Could you please come up with a good question for the passage "Under German control, and even before then, Japanese traders and fishermen from time to time visited the Marshall Islands, although contact with the islanders was irregular. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the Japanese government adopted a policy of turning the Japanese Empire into a great economic and military power in East Asia."? 

Who visited before the Germans were in charge?