Protestants showed up 500 after the Catholics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_missionaries_in_China
I don’t think it was a competition, it was a mandate from God...to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So since Roman Catholicism was all there was until the Protestants broke away, I guess that would explain it.
Now let us get BACK ON TOPIC to what we were talking about...MISSIONARIES IN CHINA, which shows why I posted the Protestant Missionaries sent from America TO COVER those in 1880-1900s.
My post had nothing to do with the Catholics in 1200 forward to the REFORMATION, it was irrelevant to the discussion.