An excellent interview on faslanyc with Kongjian Yu, principal of Turenscape, sheds light on the history of landscape architecture in China:
YK:  I would say we have a long history of garden-making in a traditional sense.  Landscape architecture just a decade ago basically meant garden-making.  The large-scale urbanization in China is really very recent.  When I returned virtually nobody was dealing with this type of land-people relationship.  So the name Turenscape was chosen as a means of differentiating landscape architecture from garden making. In my first years the [National] Commerce Department refused to allow me to register my company.  The reason is that landscape architecture is not an official profession there, and when you register they classify you according to which profession you fit into.  So they told me when i tried to register that there is only something called garden-making, there is nothing called landscape architecture.  That was part of the reason I wanted to return- I felt I had something to offer.  

Original Post from faslanyc : http://faslanyc.blogspot.com/2011/02/conscientizacao-of-landscape-interview