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The lack of interaction between ecological science and landscape practice has directly contributed to the many challenges related to the unprecedented urbanization of China. However, powerful political support for addressing landscape change with ecological knowledge makes this an opportune time to merge these two approaches. Focusing on the clear and critical knowledge gap regarding landscape–urbanization relationships in contemporary China, this article examines the fundamental role of landscape in China’s urbanization over the last four decades, highlighting administrative, economic and political changes as underlying drivers. Four dominant and evolving roles are observed: landscape as a byproduct of urbanization, landscape as city-image infrastructure for urbanization, landscape as regional growth infrastructure for urbanization, and landscape as potential ecological infrastructure. Compared with what has occurred in the developed world, these roles are analogous in certain aspects, but fundamentally different. The purpose of this essay is not to pass definitive judgment on the role of landscape in urbanization, but to provoke discourse on the complexity of landscape–urbanization relationships at different times under different social–political contexts. Toward this end, the essay asks: “Can landscape play a more effective and beneficial role in affecting sprawl and urbanization?” China’s current landscape–urbanization relationship positions China as a global laboratory for sustainable landscape innovations to be explored and monitored.