The modern Japanese script was derived from Chinese characters which since then have evolved into a logographic writing technique. The kanji script today as we understand stands for Japanese writing style which originally has been adopted from Chinese symbols. If you translate the kanji script you will find Hans character from which it was developed.
How come the Kanji script today belongs to Japan if it had its origin in China? The whole thing was the result of the trade followed by the two countries where Japan would import Chinese articles with Hans script labeled on them.
You may find number of instances such as the then Han dynasty monarch had presented a gold seal to the Japanese with Hans inscription. What we still don’t know is that how and when the Hans script was adopted and controlled by the Japanese.
It could be quite possible that the Chinese themselves had started using the Chinese Kanji script in Japan when some of them migrated to China. There was no way that Japanese could have had an occasion to comprehend and then learn the language by themselves.
The political ties between China and Japan goes back a long way and such a boding required a volume of paperwork which was necessary to go to and fro from one country to the other. In Japan they set up a committee called Fuhito who were entrusted with the duty to learn Chinese language so that they could read the documents. This perhaps made way for the Chinese Kanji script to be accepted developed in Japan.
Chinese Kanji script brought the idea of formal writing script in Japan which did not have one at that time. They began to use Chinese script for writing initially and slowly shaped their own writing system with matter taken from the Chinese script and then reshaping them to fit the Japanese grammar.
The Japanese accepted the Chinese symbol characters in their script and wrote the Japanese language with Chinese symbol naming it as Kana syllable. It was a distinct accomplishment as far as Japanese script was concerned. To further the easy acceptance of their script the Japanese introduced phonetics in their script where as in China Chinese symbols had no phonetics whatsoever.
Where the Kanji script is concerned it is used more extensively in China than in Japan. But one thing that should be kept in mind is the style of both the scripts are quite different. On the surface they may look similar but they are structurally quite dissimilar.
The reading method of the Kanji script in both China and Japan are also different. In China this script is treated exclusively as symbols and as such has no phonetic value where as in Japan it is read according to their phonetics as we have already discussed.
Chinese kanji symbols are an old form of script that is very artistic. If you would like to learn more on Chinese animal characters click the links.