Rada then heeded Legazpi call in 1564 for young religious to accompany him to Asia; by then, he was already considered one of Mexico’s brightest intellectuals. After spending five years in Cebú and Panay, he moved on to the new colonial capital of Manila in 1572, and immediately contacted the growing sangley, or Chinese, trading community there to make plans to advance to China.

The opportunity came shortly, in 1574. That year, the Fujian pirate Spaniards named Limahón (Lin Feng) attacked Manila, attracted by Spanish silver. When Spaniards swarmed around him and his men, the captain named Homoncón (Wang Wanggao) invited a few to visit China. Martín de Rada and his fellow Augustinian Jerónimo Marín, along with two soldiers, Miguel de Loarca and Pedro Sarmiento, were selected. They left Manila on June 12, 1575, and toured several cities in southern Fujian.

From this relatively brief visit of less than two months, Rada wrote a detailed report about the geography, history, policies and religions of the China he saw. The Relación del viage que se hizo a la tierra de la China had enough credibility that his fellow Augustinian friar Juan González de Mendoza, who had himself never visited China, relied upon it to write his best-seller book on the History of the Great Kingdom of China, the definitive source of information about China in Europe for decades. 

Rada’s visit to China was important for another reason: he acquired and brought back to Manila many Chinese books, which Augustinians and other missionaries used to write later works about China.  (Folch 2008)   Scholars believe this was the first collection of Chinese books that introduced important aspects of Chinese culture, political and social organizations to Europeans. (Dunne) Furthermore, Rada’s journey to China was considered the first scientific exploration of the country.  (Bernard) 

A prodigious writer about science, not only on mathematics and astronomy, his specialties, but on a wide range of topics, shortly after his return from China, Rada reported to his superior in Mexico with great regret that most of his works were lost at sea, along with his own collection of scientific works that he had brought with him.  In his letter dated Manila, June 3, 1576, Rada noted: “…I wrote a book de recta hidrographiae ratione, and I also completed a great part of a study on practical geometry in Spanish [not Latin], because I don’t think there is anything interesting in Spanish on this subject; it had seven volumes.  I wanted to write
another seven volumes on cosmography and astronomy…I wrote about judicial astrology…I also wrote a book on ways to construct a clock.”  He also “wrote a book on navigation and the measures of land and sea.  (Rodriguez 1978, vol. 13, p 553). And he had compiled an astronomical table. 

Rada further noted his own reference books on science and mathematics, also lost at sea:  Euclid and Archimedes on geometry, Ptolemy and Copernicus on astronomy, Villellion on perspective, Hali ben rangel on judicial astrology, and others.    

We should remember that Rada was not at a European university at the time, but in the remote western edge of empire, Las Indias Occidentales  Some time between June 8 and 15, 1578, Rada died at sea, probably on his way to another scientific expedition.