Or just synecdoche. 
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To be completely honest, thatās less of a āJapanā thing and more of a āmost of the world except the UKā thing, but I agree itās unfortunate 
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Funnily enough, I feel like Iāve been aware of the difference for quite a while, and it actually feels wrong to say āEnglandā to refer to the whole of Britain, but Iām not sure whyā¦ maybe itās because I used to read Horrible Histories about various royals and eras in Scotland, England and so on as a kid, so I ended up absorbing the idea that England and Scotland (among other countries within the UK) arenāt the same thing pretty early on. The other possibility might just be accents and knowing that there are at least three stereotypical accents (Received Pronunciation, Scottish and Irish) associated with very different geographical areas within the UKā¦
I donāt know, Iām just mildly surprised.
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Couple of points from a native speaker of BrE.
First yes, no one would say āa Britishā it is a Brit or a Briton (or British person/man/woman). People would know what you meant and not be offended, but it would jar/ be considered a mistake. There are a number of other nationalities to which this applies, you would also not say āa Frenchā (in fact I canāt think of a single word demonym for a French person.)
It is fine to say āan Americanā it is neither wrong nor offensive, there are a handful of other nationalities to which this applies: German, Italian etc.
On the other hand I think āa Chineseā and āa Japaneseā would carry problematic connotations. It is hard to say the words themselves are racist, but a lot of people would assume someone using the terms was racist. Obviously a non native English speaker would get a pass, but none the less be aware. If in doubt, it is a āChinese personā, āsomeone Japaneseā, āguy from Chinaā etc! I canāt think of any others which I would put this warning on, but maybe there are others which are equally problematic, that donāt come to mind.
Edited to add my other point!
On English vs British, I can tell you that this is definitely something that people in Scotland and Wales get annoyed by. Scottish people are not English, or from England and more than Californians are from New York! It is just wrong, but one has to accept that the equation has been absorbed into some languages. Using England to mean UK/Britain was pretty common at certain points in our history especially during the imperial phase, which is presumably why Americans talk about the āqueen of Englandā (because George III was frequently described as the āking of Englandā) and why Japanese has the word ć¤ć®ćŖć¹.
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Iāve heard Frenchman/Frenchwoman used.
Imagine what Northern Irish learners of Japanese think of the fact that you forgot to mention them.
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Britain (even more so if you extend to the U.K.) has a wide variety of accents/dialects/languages beyond the three you mentioned. Not many people speak Received Pronunciation.
Even within Scotland there is a big difference. People in Glasgow can be pretty incomprehensible for those in the rest of Britain. In this comedy clip Rab C Nesbitt is toning down how they speak.
Iāve never had a problem understanding English spoken by Americans, Australians, Canadians or Kiwis but Glaswegians are a different matter!
Those from northern island also problematic. I used to work with a guy from Belfast. I only understood about 25% of what he said and that was only because 25% of what he said was the F word!
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The title of this thread:
On a more serious note, the way how language can sometimes be unintuitive ā is a very interesting subject.
For example, ājailā and āprisonā are very similar concepts, but ājailerā and āprisonerā are the opposites 
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Indeed. Thatās why I said āstereotypicalā accents. I know that thereās a saying along the lines of āin the UK, the accents change every five milesā (the fact that āmilesā are now a more common unit of measurement in the US than in the UK notwithstanding). Itās quite amazing how much variety there is!
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Glaswegians might as well be speaking a different language altogether. Newcastle folks can be absolutely incomprehensible too, in my experience - some are fine but one guy in particular I spoke to seemed to have an entirely different set of vowels than the rest of English has, and spoke a million words a minute too.
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Because it literally is wrong.
Iām not disagreeing, as I think my post should have made abundantly clear, seeing as I said that I think of England and the other countries within the UK as distinct. However, given that what I was responding to was the idea that the idea that āEngland = Britainā seems very common in the world outside the UK, I just wanted to say that I donāt think that way even though Iām not from the UK, and that I was surprised that fairly early on in my life (when I was 10 or so?) I had that misconception either cleared up or completely chucked out of the set of possible things I could have learnt in my lifetime, because I found out that England wasnāt the only nation in the UK.
My uncertainty as to the reason for what I felt was more a matter of wondering how exactly the correct idea reached me so early given that Iām not from the UK and the misconception is supposedly very common outside the UK. Thatās all. If the misconception really is all that common, then it should have been more easily normalised, and that normalisation should have reached me.
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You can have hours of fun with the differences between British English and American English. Hooker and fanny come to mind as just two examples. Certainly when I heard the term āfanny packā on a US show for the first time I think I spat out my tea.
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Dammit! Imagine there is a line in there saying something to the effect of āI have less direct experience of NI, but the situation there is even more complex!ā
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Actually road signs in the UK are still in miles, as are speed limits. No idea why. Iām Canadian, and whenever Iāve driven in the US, itās my British partner who is doing all the converting to kilometers for me.
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Oh, that seems to explain it then. Thatās very interesting. Thanks!
Because it costs money to change all those signs, is why.
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What other meaning does āhookerā have? Iām English and Iāve never really heard it outside of American media, and only ever to mean prostitute.
or frenchie hehe but thatās very casual.
hey now!
kittens are all picking up the Geordie accent *sigh except for the mini who seems to continue speaking with a somewhat posh british accent for some odd reason.
all this reminded me of this terrible cover letter my bro asked me to help him with: started with āi am a french.ā we laugh about it to this day. it sounds so wrong lol. but itās just because he translated literally. poor soul.
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Or frog if you want to be less than friendly
Hey, I played a gig with a band from Newcastle and almost every vowel they uttered was some subtle variation on āooā. You canāt tell me with a straight face thatās normal, intelligible English 
The most understandable guy was the singer, and he was Brazilian. The bus driver was firmly in ājust smile, nod and hope itās not a questionā territory
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