Portugal had already been active in the Far East for over 60 years and collected a large body of information on China by the time Spain colonized the Philippines. This information had originally been closely guarded, but it slowly made its way into the public domain.
西班牙在菲律賓殖民之前，葡萄牙已在東亞六十多年，並收集了很多有關中國的資料，起初這些資料屬機密文件，後來方慢慢流傳出去。