Probably Chinese. These were also used in Indonesia, Okinawa, and elsewhere. Indonesian ones have pommels similar to Chinese ones, so far as I have seen.
They were used as police truncheons (like jutte/jitte in Japan), not just as martial arts weapons.
Sai in English, which is from the Japanese, from Chinese chai. The character 釵 also means "hairpin".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_(weapon)
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