Java predates Unicode 3.1 (I think I got the version correct: but basically when Java was created, Unicode had less than 65536 codepoints). So Java had 16 bits chars from the get go and to this day is still backward compatible with earlier Java code.

You can also ask to get the "codepoint", which returns you an int.

But, yup, the Java char primitive is 16 bits.

It's a SNAFU hard to understate. SNAFU doesn't even being to describe it. But to be honest Unicode in itself is probably the biggest SNAFU of our entire field.