Development of Rural Regions in China: Evidence of Industry Integration by the Residents of Yongan Village (Quanzhou City, China)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
First, I would like to highlight the good approach with which the authors have focused the analysis of the problem through a case study in China in which they approach a universal phenomenon although with differences with other territories in terms of times and scales.
They authors apply a broad concept of sustainable development, including socio-economic aspects, not limited to natural and ecological aspects.
I think that that the objective of the application of the results of the case analysis should also be positively evaluated: to integrate and achieve sustainable urban and rural development by actively and effectively facilitating the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, which is generally identified with the process of "integrated diversification of the rural economic base".
This is an aspect of great interest since, as the authors point out, the dramatic urbanization in China during the last decade has forced the Chinese government to consider the implementation of different strategies that allow the synchronous development of rural and urban areas in China (rows 173-174).
It also presents great interest in the proposal to strengthen the agricultural sector through the integration of modern technologies (rows 209-212).
However, the manuscript submitted presents, in my opinion, important deficiencies that must be corrected to accept its publication.
1.- In the literature review of section 2 the references are very scarce for the specific purpose of this epigraph. This is clearly manifested in other shortcomings that I set out below.
2.- It is not pertinent to identify the Western world with the United States, it is a limiting delimitation and not fully real. Unwise, in my opinion, the China-US opposition is very simplifying and reproducing the global approach of the great powers (lines 144-145). Oversimplification when referring to the model of agricultural activities in European countries. Lack of deeper knowledge of the problem in North America and Europe.
3.- What the authors call “experience economy” (row 240) is actually agricultural tourism or agrotourism and secondary industry is agribusiness and is almost non-existent so that in reality the case analyzed and proposed as a model maintains agricultural activity as an essential economic base. It seems that the goal of the proposed model is the growth of agrotourism
4.- I consider that there are very serious shortcomings in the way in which the case study has been selected (rows 281-283). The procedure should be just the opposite in my view: to analyse several samples to abstract results of a more general nature. More than a selection, it seems that the authors have chosen previously a unique and very singular case to demonstrate a general theory, which does not seem very suitable from a scientific perspective. In fact, it could be a situation of previously known exceptionality that is intended to be analyzed and exposed as a model.
5.- As far as methodology is concerned, the authors state that they have used "ethnographic research methods" when in fact they are sociological methods very straightforward. In any case, the basis of the research seems to be a survey of 20 people and some in-depth interviews, which cannot be considered as sufficient support to obtain robust results that can be extrapolated to other cases.
6.- On the other hand, even if the analysis is based on surveys, it would need a more precise quantification. It is not only valid to affirm that the people got out of poverty, but it is necessary to detail the changes in disposable income, a measurement of improvements in infrastructure and equipment, etc. These are very poor and imprecise results supported by a very deficient methodology. What questions were asked?, How were the questions selected? How were responses counted? etc.
7.- Perhaps for the above reasons, the conclusions are not supported by the results. More than conclusions These are new data, not conclusions. They are general ideas, reflections and proposals without support in the analysis of the resulting data. Nor do they establish a real discussion between one's own results and general theories.
8.- The inclusion of a location map is recommended to help readers locate the studied village within the vast territory of China. In addition, Figure 2 should be labeled in English so that it can be intelligible to readers who do not speak or read the Chinese language.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
I think the work has a scientific consistency and is suitable for publication.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the positive feedback. You mentioned minor English spellchecking could be utilised, so the proofreading has been performed - you can see the attached certificate.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The theme of the manuscript is relevant.
My main problem is with the manuscript that it is not clear to me from the current version of the manuscript what the main purpose of this publication would be. By purpose means who the authors intend the manuscript to be written for. I assume that since MDPI is a global publisher, and Sustainability is also a global journal, the authors intend this manuscript for a global readership. If that is the case, then please take the following into account.
Since there are many local rural development initiatives in the World outside the People’s Republic of China (and to some extent, even in other states with a similar political system), based on similar local agricultural products, the case study alone is not novel globally, I suppose. If, on the other hand, the authors emphasize novelty within the People’s Republic of China, then this may already be relevant to the global target audience. This, in turn, would require a better explanation of some factors for the global reader.
The most important of these, I suppose, is to answer the question of what actors, i.e. who or what, according to the authors, play the most important role in the relative success of the presented case study within the People’s Republic of China, such e.g., as the local political-administrative leadership, the local population involved, or the attitude of the given province concerned? The authors need to give a concrete answer to this in the manuscript. Since the People’s Republic of China, as far as I know, does not have Western-style local non-governmental organizations (NGOs, which, in turn, are often the initiators of development projects such as the one in the study, and the role of local populations in such projects is important globally), I think that the authors should be more focused on who, what and how instead of global local NGOs play their role in the People’s Republic of China in general and in the case study they examine in this term (political leaderships on different local scales, local administration scales, and power sharing and collaborative relationships between them). Because only in this way can non-Chinese, foreign readers could better interpret the relative success of the case study described by the authors within the People’s Republic of China political system and better know and understand not only the case study but some of the related details of People’s Republic of China political system as well.
The selection of case studies always carries with it subjectivity. The authors should better justify, with objective scientific arguments, why they chose this particular case study as the study area for their research. And given the extended area and numerous population size of the People’s Republic of China, they should somewhat introduce some similar, innovative local rural initiatives inside the People’s Republic of China from literature/internet sources.
I assume that the authors should provide more methodological information about their qualitative study. More specifically, what is the time for research? Or, for example, did the authors use snowball sampling? Have the interview responses been completely transcripted, and if so, has any interview analysis been done on the transcripts? Did the authors do the interviewing themselves or did they hire someone else to do it? Were there any differences in the position of the interviewees (e.g., based on age, gender, and position of power within the community, which can occur within such a small sample)? For example, there may be interviewees who have more political information and motivation about the local rural development project. For this reason, I do not suppose it is a good idea to have practically no information about the interviewees (in parentheses, their position within the local community could be written only briefly, or their age or gender, and this information would not violate their anonymity, I suppose).
I assume that local policymakers and local rural development experts should have also been more involved in qualitative research in the form of interviews.
In theories of economic development (pp. 4-5), the authors, I suppose, somewhat one-sidedly identify the "West" with the USA. For example, in the European Union, which in my understanding is also part of the "West" from a global point of view, there are also different economic approaches to the subject of the manuscript than those mentioned by the authors in the manuscript. I recommend to the attention of the authors, for example, some more publications in this issue: e.g. Cavicchi, A., & Santini, C. (Eds.). (2014). Food and wine events in Europe: A stakeholder approach. Routledge.
Figure 2 should have a scale bar and English characters as well (as in its present form the figure is difficult to interpret for non-Chinese readers).
In all the places where the authors mention the Chinese currency (yuan) and the Chinese unit of territory (mu), the authors should supplement these by converting them to USD and the metric area unit (mentioning the conversion key is not enough, but the absolute values should also be converted by the authors, for example, in footnotes).
Since the manuscript is co-authored, what does it when "I" is used in the manuscript?
Author Response
Dear editor,
Thank you for your effort and expertise. The detailed responses to your comments are in the attached file. Also, we have performed the English proofreading - we will send the certificate along with re-submitted manuscript
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)
The amendments to the article significantly enriched it. The authors referred to the comments of the reviewers. I believe that the article can be published in its present form.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the positive estimation of our work
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
The report of the results of this second review as well as the responses of the reviewer to the authors are included in the file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Your paper has been improved.
I am afraid that I have not received a more specific answer to my earlier points that I suppose the global reader would be interested also in. Namely, which local interest group/actor/agent do the authors consider the main reason for the development success of the case study described in the manuscript? The local population or the local political leaders? Or, e.g. the local entrepreneurs? This would be worth explaining further, I assume.
The maps should have scale bars.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
The modifications made by the authors following the reviewer's instructions are adequate and sufficient.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I have read the paper titled «Industries Integration by Yongan Villagers in Fuzhou City of China: Probing the New Rural Development Models» with great interest and close attention.
The research, presented for this reviewing, aimed for analysis of primary, secondary and tertiary industries focusing on expirience of people from Yongan Village, in Quanzhou City. Integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries is an important support measure for agricultural transformation and modernization, as well as for development of rural areas. Yongan Village in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, had attempted to integrate primary, secondary and tertiary industries. This village creatively applies development model "1+3+2" moving from primary industry toward the tertiary one, and then to the secondary. Such an approach provides new way of development for the existing model of primary, secondary and tertiary industries integration. Basing on investigation of Yongan village experience, it is proposed to develop a theme program of experience for integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Second, it is required to reinforce the mechanism of infrastructure construction and human resources providing, in order to promote rural development model with non-stop integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Analysis of the integration model of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in Yongan village is expected to support Chinese theories in the investigated scientific field, and to serve as theoretical and practical guidance for relevant practice in rural areas of China and developing countries. Authors' results are presented as contrast models; theur implementation in rural areas could help future researchers to perform their studeis based on these new efficient models. This research is scientifically novel and contributes theoretically and practically to development of scientific provisions that solve problems of Chinese rural regions' sustainable development.
Considering all this, the relevance of the paper presented for the reviewing is undoubted.
Still, I suggest the authors should take care about several flaws, so research quality would increase after their elimination, and the article would become more interesting for the journal readers and professional economists.
There are several key areas that need more work prior to publication. I have summarized the required changes in the hope that the feedback will be useful to you for paper revision.
1. The abstract should contain Goal and Novelty/Improvement.
2. I don't understand Figure 1. What is its pyrpose? I suggest authors should make their own Figure. In my opinion, a Figure representing the research concept is necessary.
3. Table 1. Development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries and experience program design - this needs additional description.
4. Please explain why there are no stated hypotheses in the paper
5. Please specify, which time period is covered in this research
6. A flowchart may be added to the article to show the research methodology.
7. I suggest you should make a "Discussion" section in the paper.
8. The Conclusion section needs to be described scientifically. Kindly frame it along the following lines:
a) Main findings of the present study (200 words)
b) Strengths and limitations(200 WORDS)
с) Recommendation and future direction (200 WORDS)
9. Further justify the effectiveness of the approaches you propose.
10. I recommend the authors to add analysis of the articles dedicated to similar problem published in the journal MDPI Sustainability during 2020-2022.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an interesting study about the New Rural Development Models.
Although the research topic is more interesting, there are few suggestions to improve the content of the manuscript as follows:
1. I recommend that authors rewrite the abstract using the following abstract template:
Goal ...... The article describes new rural development models..., based on ..., enabling to .... Using (describe the methods), the authors (describe the obtained results)..... As an example, we illustrate the proposed models... Our models allows to improve (any quantitative indicators by XX, X%)... The new models effectiveness evaluation is confirmed by the calculation .... New research results develop/supplement/improve ... and can be used for….Novelty......
2. Please elaborate on how rural industrial development theories in China differ from American and European theories. And is your research based only on Chinese scientific statements?
3. I recommend that the authors reconsider Literature Review in order to explore and clarify international approaches to the problem.
4. It is necessary to make separate sections "Results" and "Discussion".
5. I lacked justification for why the proposed models are called new.
6. I propose to visualize the concept of the new models and describe how they differ from others.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper reports how industry integration has been carried out in a single case study. The author should better clarify why this experience is relevant to academic scholarship. He may want to emphasize the contribution and implication of the manuscript.
More pictures and diagrams would help visualize the development model.
The manuscript needs thorough proofreading by a native speaker. It is full of repetitions of the same concepts in all the different sections and has a lot of redundant forms, language blemishes, and tautologies.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Your revised article appears much more clear and scientifically coherent. I beleive it is now may be accepted for publication. I approve your work and I wish you have a success in your scientific activity.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear author,
I appreciated your efforts to explain why the reported experience is relevant to academic scholarship. The claim that this model can be exported everywhere successfully sounds a little bit pretentious. Therefore, I would suggest keeping a more “moderate” tone and a more critical approach in highlighting strengths and weaknesses.
Having said this, I think the work now has a scientific consistency and is suitable for publication.
