Hua 華
This character is a self-designation of the Chinese both internally and abroad, e.g. the Chinese minority in Vietnam is known as the Hoa. Its basic meaning is “civilized, elite” (apart from “flower”, with the same character), the opposite meaning of “barbarian”. The Chinese do indeed consider themselves as the civilized ones, as distinct from the barbarians. Hua is unapologetic in its claim to superiority.
Zhong, “middle”, from Zhongguo, “the Middle Kingdom, China”. Zhonghua Minguo 中華民國, “Republic of China”, and Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo, 中華人民共和國, “People’s Republic of China”.
History
Via KE- Zhou 周 dynasty (-11th to -3rd) had come to power through a coup d’état against the earlier Shang 商 dynasty (-16th to -11th), they may have constructed the legendary Xia 夏 dynasty, r. -21st to -16th century for propaganda. Daxia 大夏, meaning “Greater Bactria” was firmly held by the Iranian-speaking Scythians. They imparted their lucrative knowledge of metallurgy and horse-training (Scythian legends pertaining to these skills were interiorized even by the Japanese). The oldest attestation of Hua 華 as a self-designation is among the ruling class of the feudal state of Zhao 趙. Apparently the ruling class there had Scythian origins, had fully assimilated into China but had preserved a collective self-designation referring to their distinctive ethnic origins and its ancestral homeland of Bactria. Xia 夏 was sinified into Hua and written 華.
The origin of the words Xia 夏 and Hua 華 is the collective self-designation of the inhabitants of Bactria, a country of which the Greeks rendered the Iranian name as Ariana. The unexpected commonality between India and China is reflected in Tibetan. There, the word for the Chinese is Rgya, from Hua, from Ᾱrya; for India it is Rgyagar, apparently from Ᾱryavarta. At any rate, most of Asia called itself Ᾱrya at one time.
As during the Warring States period Zhao was one of the most powerful states (the last to hold out against the Qin 秦 bid to unify the empire under their own rule), this usage percolated among the elites and then also the masses of the neighbouring Chinese states.
Chin
Qin 秦dynasty (-3rd) yielded the international name China, Sanskrit Cīnā
Han
The Han 漢 dynasty (-3rd to +3rd) lent its name to the usual self-designation of the ethnic Chinese as distinct from the minorities within China as “the Han”.