From my viewpoint (I can say it now), Japan is not an Urban civilization while China is. Some part of the Chinese knowledge went to Japan in old times as the fractal sense (or holographic) of the City and buildings (the part being the whole)...

But the local animus overrode it in the feeling of impermanency... The building should be a frozen state of a movement of gravity, not a balanced state as we would think of. A building is a threat to Nature if it becomes permanent.

While in the historical feudal system there were big cities with a Chinese sort of grid, it was mostly the influence of the occidental states (Er... Mostly the Anglo-Saxon ones :-) ) that led them to use industrial time tools for building and designing urban areas (see, I don't really say cities).
It was felt as useful... Not as "nice" !

Being on a limited island where square meter is wealth, they do have a very high coding for social relations..! Still now I believe ?

"What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman