The silk road from the Far East to Asia probably operated from about 200 B.C.E although it was not a direct trading route but worked in stages; so there was no direct contact from say China to Palestine. Marco Polo arrived in China around 1265 C.E. Chazal ascribe Noah's sons as founders of the Greeks etc. There is no reference to Chinese, Koreans or Japanese - so which son takes the honours?
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
Torah Meira - page 297 says that according to some Magog the son of Yefes is connected with Eretz Sin - ארץ סין. Although there are other translations of ארץ סין - one of the translations is China. This would indicate - at least according to this translation - that the Chinese are descendants of Yefes.
See all about the destinations of some of the 70 nations in Talmud Yerushalmi Megilla (Artscroll edition 12a,3). They quote R. Aharon Marcus in Kessess Hasofer who holds that the descendants of Magog (descendant of Yefes) may be identified with the Mongols, who lived near China (but who are known to have ranged as far as the Danube River). He notes that Arab writers have referred to the Great Wall of China as the "wall of Magog."
Well the Zohar Vayishlach 178a makes reference to the "Royal Tusser" which was also the Greek name for the Chinese domesticated silk worm(as opposed to the wild variety which is also mentioned in the Zohar). So it would appear that the Chinese were indeed known.
Considering that China is made up seven main people groups, it would really depend on which specific people group you are talking about. However, if we take the primary people group, the Han Chinese, who are believed to have emigrated north from India, then according to the Table given in the Jewish Encyclopedia based on the various midrashim, they would have been descended from Ham.
Now from a more Arheological perspective, I give you this:
By Stedman in his book The Beginnings.
So I'm going to go with Ham. Though there is also possibility that at least some of the people groups in China were descendents of Avraham Avinu's sons that he sent east(see Ibn Ezra Beresehit 26:1, and Genesis Rabba 65).