A friend of mine returned from a 3-month trip to China where she was continuing her education in TCM.
One of the interesting things that I've learned from her story is that in China there are whole hospitals of TCM which are independent of the regular western medicine and people can choose where they want to be treated. The TCM hosiptals are large, government supportred and treat great amount of people.
It seems that there, Chinese medicine is not considered as "alternative medicine"
but rather like a very regular one.