Wa is the oldest name of Japan attested in foreign sources. Chinese and Korean scribes regularly used the Chinese character to refer to the inhabitants of the Wa kingdoms on Kyushu , as well as the ancient Yamato kingdom, until the 8th century, when the Japanese replaced the character with .
Identity and accuracy
Older records may have more ambiguity tied to this term than later periods. Shigeo Fujii notes cases where this word might have been used originally by the Chinese to refer to a variety of people to China's east, spanning people groups living from Okjeo to Manchuria; the term then began referring to peoples located further eastward, until its use was restricted to describing the Japanese. This pattern is analogous to use of the term Aethiopia in the Mediterranean classical and medieval world.
During the early medieval age, the Korean peninsula brushed against the eastern limit of the Sinosphere's attention, whereas the further-off Japan would straddle the boundary, variously paid attention to depending on its domestic stability, until it eventually established an indirect connection by requesting the Joseon Tongsinsa.
Other terms now known to refer to Japan have historically seen other uses. For instance, Tōno Hiroyuki argues, the usage of on Yegun's epitaph discovered in 2011 in Xi'an, refers to Baekje, not Japan, as it already describes as the place the people of Japan fled to avoid execution.
The term is another such example of names being used as a general term rather than any particular nation, Japan; its meaning became specific in later periods. In older periods, this term was also used to refer to Baekje, or even its enemy Silla.
For example, when the Silla and Tang coalition destroyed Baekje in 660, Tang forces erected the "Stele of the Tang Pacifying the State of Baekje" (), where it records that Fusang has been 'pacified'. The Samguk yusa additionally mentions that "Great King Beopheung of yore was coronated in the Jageuk Palace and governed the land of Fusang." If 'Fusang' refers specifically to Japan, it would mean Silla—not Baekje—ruled over Japan, and Jageuk palace would not be in Wolseong, but somewhere in Japan.
Like many other exonyms in later periods, 'Wa' was not strictly categorized and used loosely in the ancient era.
Historical references
The earliest textual references to Japan are in the Chinese classic texts. Within the official Chinese dynastic Twenty-Four Histories, Japan is mentioned among the so-called 'Eastern barbarians'.
The historian Wang Zhenping summarizes Wa contacts from the Han dynasty to the Sixteen Kingdoms period:
When chieftains of various Wo tribes contacted authorities at Lelang, a Chinese commandery established in northern Korea in 108 B.C. by the Western Han court, they sought to benefit themselves by initiating contact. In A.D. 57, the first Wo ambassador arrived at the capital of the Eastern Han court (25–220); the second came in 107.
Wo diplomats never called on China on a regular basis. A chronology of Japan–China relations from the first to the ninth centuries reveals this irregularity in the visits of Japanese ambassadors to China. There were periods of frequent contacts as well as of lengthy intervals between contacts. This irregularity clearly indicated that, in its diplomacy with China, Japan set its own agenda and acted on self-interest to satisfy its own needs.
No Wo ambassador, for example, came to China during the second century. This interval continued well past the third century. Then within merely nine years, the female Wo ruler Himiko sent four ambassadors to the Wei court (220–265) in 238, 243, 245, and 247, respectively. After the death of Himiko, diplomatic contact with China slowed. Iyoo, the female successor to Himiko, contacted the Wei court only once. The fourth century was another quiet period in China–Wo relations except for the Wo delegation dispatched to the Western Jin court (265–316) in 306. With the arrival of a Wo ambassador at the Eastern Jin court (317–420) in 413, a new age of frequent diplomatic contact with China began. Over the next sixty years, ten Wo ambassadors called on the Southern Song court (420–479), and a Wo delegation also visited the Southern Qi court (479–502) in 479. The sixth century saw only one Wo ambassador pay respect to the Southern Liang court (502–557) in 502. When these ambassadors arrived in China, they acquired official titles, bronze mirrors, and military banners, which their masters could use to bolster their claims to political supremacy, to build a military system, and to attempt to expand its influence towards southern Korea.