I wouldn't be surprised if this was a genuine East/West difference rather than A is better than B type situation.

It's hard to explain - there's a Chinese phrase called 're nao' which literally means 'hot and noisy', but means 'fun' or 'enjoyable'. In the UK we might value focus, calmness, and purpose on a webpage, whereas lots of Chinese webpages seem to be designed for this 'hot and noisy' idea of fun. I think the aesthetic sense here for the majority of people is significantly different from our own in general, so I don't see why this might be different on the web.

I would also take into account that many internet users in China are still using IE6. And, internet connections tend to be of low quality so it is more bearable for the user to download one busy page from two simpler pages.

I live in Japan and I find that Japanese websites are also 'cluttered'.

Korea too. Many sites in East Asia use java applets and active x nonsense. Kind of ironic since Zen is from Japan and the websites are anything but. Although one block of a Chinese, Korean or Japanese city probably has more neon than all of Las Vegas.