China: A New Trajectory Prioritizing Rural Rather Than Urban Development?

Reviewers’ feedback

Responses

Reviewer 1

This paper, on rural/urban development patterns and priorities in China, has potential and contains some interesting information but it is hard to follow as presented. The essay regularly restates its purpose or approaches, but it does so in a confusing and inconsistent way. The goal of the paper is much clearer in the abstract than it is in the paper. On the positive side, the paper is well-researched, contains valuable data and appears to offer solid advice and analysis.

Thanks very much for your constructive feedback and interest in our paper.

Based on your advice, we restructured the paper and rewrote several sections, such as methods, results and the first part of the discussion, to make this paper clearer and more consistent.

But it needs reworking to be truly effective.  For example, on page three, the authors write the policy change in China from favouring urbanization to rural development has surprised many scholars but critical analysis on why it happened is limited. Consequently, we address possible motivations behind this choice by addressing the following two questions:

What are the possible strategies to revive and develop rural communities sustainably?

Why has China chosen to develop rural areas now and can it achieve this target?”

As this follows the paper’s introductory comments, I assumed that answering these questions was the focus of the paper but that is not the case.

Thank you for your helpful feedback.

According to your advice, we split the second research question and rewrote all of them to more clearly present what we are going to investigate. Here they are now:

•           What are the possible strategies to revive and develop rural communities sustainably? (Q1)

•           What socio-political drivers make China choose to develop rural areas now? (Q2)

•           What are the possible dilemmas and how can China cope with them? (Q3)

Second, we rewrote several sections and restructured the paper to make the layout of this paper is consistent with the above three questions. In addition, we connect each section of this paper with the corresponding research question.

For example, as follows:

To explore strategies on how to revive and develop rural communities sustainably (Q1), we summarized two scenarios that represent mainstream views and proposed a new trajectory inspired by China’s rural development strategy.

It was not clear how the materials in sections 2.1  to the first part of 3.1 fit with the overall argument.

Thanks for your feedback. We restructured the manuscript and rewrote the intersectional paragraphs to make it more clear. We believe that the current layout is much clearer.

For example, an intersectional paragraph connecting original sections 2.1 & 3.1 is as follows:

 To answer the above questions, this paper investigates the policy process of the plan by following the policy theories of Weible and Cairney [55]. To answer Q1, we conduct policy analysis by evaluating policy implications for sustainable rural development to understand past experiences and inform current decisions [55, 56]. To answer Q2, we adopt the advocacy coalition framework to explore socio-political drivers of China’s choice of developing rural areas [57-60]. To answer Q3, we discuss possible dilemmas and several feasible solutions and recommendations based on the determinants of implementation success for policy implementation effectiveness outlined by Knill and Tosun [61].

The section on China’s Strategic Plan of Rural Development is interesting.  Then Section 3.2 starts with this statement; “By exploring the five policy subsystems behind the plan with the application of the advocacy coalition framework it is possible to better understand China’s policy change from speeding up urbanization to developing rural areas.”  It was not clear if these five policy subsystems are part of the Strategic Plan for Rural Development or if this is the advocacy coalition framework mentioned.  We have not yet learned much about what is in the plan.  What are the strategies China is implementing? Does the plan answer the questions above? If the reader understands the plan better then the section on the challenges about implementing the plan and the policy implications would make more sense.

Thanks for your feedback.

We added two new paragraphs, remade the diagram and rewrote this section to make it clearer.

The methods section is much too detailed on the literature review (search equations not needed) but very little on the field research. Who was interviewed? What were they asked related to this project?

We rewrote the methods section, introduced our field research in the first paragraph of this section and added the participants' lists in the supplementary material.  

The writing is generally good but there are some awkward sections. These are usually situations where the flow of the argument is hard to follow or jumps from one topic to another. One example would be line 79 to 81 and the connection with the sentence that follows.

We carefully revised this paper and believe the current flow of our argument is improved.

The paper is not yet ready for publication, but with some tightening and more attention to the structure of the argument, it could make an interesting paper.

We carefully revised this paper according to your and other reviewers’ feedback and believe that the current version is clearer and publishable.

Reviewer 3

1) Focus on rural development, rural regeneration in today's urbanized world is very important at the global, regional, and national levels. Sustainable development will never be just about creative urban areas.

Thanks a lot for your feedback and interests in our paper.

We super agree with you that rural areas should be included in sustainable development regime and it is our original motivation to write this paper. 

2) It is advisable to highlight scientific motives than political.

We are not quite sure what are ‘scientific motives’ you raised here. If you are talking about the drivers of this plan, we listed five drivers in this paper. Although we described them as socio-political drivers, scientific evidence has been provided for each of them.

In addition, as we emphasized in this paper, China’s choice of developing rural areas is ‘unexpected’ and is a political decision. Before approaching ‘scientific motives’, it’s better to understand the political motives and assessing their feasibility rigorously, and it is what we did in this paper.

We agree with you that more ‘scientific analysis’ such as regression analyses is important but it can come later in future research to evaluate our findings. We added this point in the last paragraph of Section 4.5.

Inspired by your feedback, we restructured the paper and rewrote several sections, such as methods, results and the first part of the discussion, to make this paper clearer and more rigorous.

3) Pay attention to formatting requirements of Bibliography.

Thanks for pointing out this question. We checked all bibliography again and fixed the errors.

4) It is advisable not to use "we" but "authors".

We agree with you that ‘the authors’ sounds more academic and we changed some. However, we still kept some because we think it would be better to keep using ‘we’ to make this paper concise and easy to read. At least it saves hundreds of words.

Reviewer 2

I view the article very positively. The authors have worked very conscientiously on its individual parts. The authors were able to define the research problem well and conducted a very comprehensive literature review. Nevertheless, I would suggest considering a few minor changes:

Thanks very much for your feedback and interest in our paper.

1. page 2, line 56 - in my opinion too many publications are included in one reference (18-16). I propose to differentiate this.

Thanks for your constructive feedback. We grouped these references into different aspects of rural withering as follows:

Rural withering has been hard to stop and many scholars are concerned about the future of rural areas, such as isolated farming communities [18, 19], rural youth out-migration [20, 21], farm land degradation [10, 22], left-behind kids and women [21, 23], limited access to resources and services [13, 24], excessive construction land with severe environmental pollution [25] and vulnerability to disasters like climate change [26, 27].    

2. in the Introduction, I propose to refer more extensively to the international discussion exceeding the China case study. It is often pointed out that if an article undertakes a case study of one country, it must be well explained (this condition is met in the article) and at the same time referenced in the literature review and academic discussion. It is therefore worthwhile to present it better, more explicitly.

We have added international discussion in the introduction. It is also presented a bit later in the first part of the results.

3 Figures 5, 6 and 7 are in my opinion unnecessary. I remind that this is a scientific article, each Figure must have some scientific contribution. In this case, I do not see such a contribution.

Thanks for your suggestion at first. We quite agree with you that each figure should have some scientific contribution.

Because of the scientific contribution, we want to keep them.

First, Figures 5,6 &7 are a part of our fieldwork results, showing much more direct, detailed and visualised evidence (such as photos) to elaborate on some arguments we made based on other authors’ publications.

Figure 5 provides distinctly different rural landscape and heritage in China at the same time, such as the Om Din village (top right, bottom middle and bottom left), which is the last in China that maintains an aboriginal tribal culture. Unfortunately, it was burned early this year and this image is invaluable as it records the original landscape of this village.

Figure 6 also has academic value because it shows how the concept of sustainable development has been embedded into China's propaganda. 

Figure 7 provides direct evidence showing how the roofs and the exterior wall have been reconstructed by the local government to show their perceptions of ethnic culture conservation.

All of these photos have not been published and they illustrate many aspects of China’s rural governance.

Photos like these have also been broadly used in high-quality publications, such as

Hansen, M. H., Li, H. and Svarverud, R., 2018. Ecological civilization: Interpreting the Chinese past, projecting the global future, Global Environmental Change, 53: 195-203.

Li, C., Li, S., Feldman, M. W., Li, J., Zheng, H. and Daily, G. C., 2018. The impact on rural livelihoods and ecosystem services of a major relocation and settlement program: A case in Shaanxi, China, Ambio, 47(2): 245-259.

4. in principle, I assess the discussion positively. Nevertheless, in my opinion it should be improved a bit. Currently, it describes selected cases from China in too broad a manner. In order to give it a broader scientific dimension, I propose to generalise the content presented more than at present. They cannot be reduced to recommendations for China (of course, the current Discussion has a broader scope) but more a discourse with other theses in the literature. The authors should definitely present their position more strongly and confront doubts in combination with other theses. for example, the authors very aptly point out discrepancies from the perspective of national and local approaches. However, they then mainly describe specific situations. For me, on the other hand, some generalisation, the presentation of a theoretical approach (i.e. proposing universal differences in this respect) would also have been valuable.

Thanks so much for your constructive feedback.

The whole paper now aims to answer three questions:

•           What are the possible strategies to revive and develop rural communities sustainably? (Q1)

•           What socio-political drivers make China choose to develop rural areas now? (Q2)

•           What are the possible dilemmas and how can China cope with them? (Q3)

We extensively discuss international strategies for sustainable rural development at first in the results section. It was originally under the methods section. We have now changed it.

China’s strategy represents a new trajectory and then the rest of this paper (before 4.5) assesses if this strategy is feasible.

Section 4.5 provides more generalized discussion on sustainable rural development.

Based on your feedback, we rewrote section 4.5 to add more general lessons from China’s rural development.

Also, inspired by your feedback, we restructured the paper and rewrote several sections, such as methods, results and the first part of the discussion, to make this paper clearer and provide generalized take-home messages.

Reviewer 1

Second Review for China: A new trajectory prioritizing rural rather than urban development

This is much better and much easier to follow. That said, there is a lot packed into this paper: addressing three questions, using three methodologies and a mention of the Lewis model, proposing two scenarios and one potential trajectory, then looking at China’s Rural Plan and two paths to reach five subfields and then three dilemmas and then the policy implications. It is a lot for a reader to follow.

There is good, interesting material in this paper – and I think if some parts were expanded upon there would be even more – but a lot of it gets lost in the complicated structure.

Dear reviewer,

Thanks very much for your constructive feedback and interest in our paper again. We appreciate your patience and insightful suggestions in helping us polish this paper.

Based on your suggestions, we restructured the paper, expanded several sections and cut other sections to make this paper easier to read. How we have done this is detailed in our responses below.  

My suggestions:

1. If the goal of the paper is to answer the three questions listed then I would structure the paper with that in mind. For Q1, though, is the goal is reach broad conclusions for other countries from China’s experience or to analyze China’s experiences? The questions sounds like the first but the concluding policy section sounds like the second. Analyzing China’s experience (and perhaps suggesting possible lessons for other rural communities) would be a better approach then suggesting that you are coming up with possible strategies to revive and develop rural communities sustainably because I don’t think you are doing that the way the paper stands.

What are the possible strategies to revive and develop rural communities sustainably? (Q1)

Thank you.

We thought our original layout is clear but we found the flow is still a bit unclear reading your feedback.

We initially planned to propose three viewpoints to answer Q1 but didn't mention the third one very clearly.

Based on your insightful feedback, we have restructured section 3.1 and rewrote section 3.1.3 to highlight the third viewpoint and facilitate the flow of the paper to Q2 & Q3.

2. The section in the chart about China’s plan could do with a paragraph that summarizes the policies. You have two big tables but they don’t have a lot of information in them.

Thanks for your feedback. We restructured this section and moved the table into supplementary material.

I did not find Figure 4 clear. Are there any details in the plan on how the milestones and goals mentioned will be achieved? Is there any description of the reasoning behind the plan? Have other analysts looked at that? Is part of the reasoning for the adoption of China’s plan because the rural areas are so much poorer than the urban areas?

Are there any details in the plan on how the milestones and goals mentioned will be achieved?

·         Yes, details or targets are listed in the big table (now in supplementary). Others are listed in the document:

STATE COUNCIL 2018. Strategic Plan of Rural Development (2018-2022). In: CHINA, S. C. O. P. S. R. O. (ed.). Beijing, China: The State Council of People's Republic of China & The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Is there any description of the reasoning behind the plan?

·          Yes, but the reasoning listed in the above document is quite vague and broad, such as great rejuvenation, achieve sustainable development and alleviate poverty. It is the reason that we chose to use the advocacy coalition framework to better capture the reasoning.

Have other analysts looked at that?

·         Most other analysts’ opinions are summarized and embedded in our analysis while adopting the advocacy coalition framework to investigate the policy change.

·         Most other analysts’ opinions are not targeting the whole strategy but only one part or sphere of it. For examples,

SUN, P., ZHOU, L., GE, D., LU, X., SUN, D., LU, M. & QIAO, W., 2021. How does spatial governance drive rural development in China's farming areas?, Habitat International, 109: 102320.

KAN, K., 2021. Creating land markets for rural revitalization: Land transfer, property rights and gentrification in China, Journal of Rural Studies, 81: 68-77.

KU, H. B. & KAN, K., 2020. Social work and sustainable rural development: The practice of social economy in China, International Journal of Social Welfare, 29(4): 346-355.

Is part of the reasoning for the adoption of China’s plan because the rural areas are so much poorer than the urban areas?

·         Yes, it is one of the reasons but not all and that’s the reason we identified poverty eradication as one of the five socio-political drivers. In addition, poverty eradication in China is a political action because the basic metric to identify whether or not a person is poor is that the person’s net income is less than 2746 RMB per annum, which is even lower than the UN’s standard for extreme poverty (see  https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/01/13/principles-and-practice-in-measuring-global-poverty) and  

XIANGHUI, L., 2020. A Critique of Precision Poverty Alleviation: Does China Approach Adequate Policy Tools?, Business and Public Administration Studies, 14(1): 11-20.)

3. You mention the three different three different policy theories (policy process theories, advocacy coalition framework and determinants of success for policy implementation effectiveness) but you don’t say much about them or how you used them. (Are the policy process theories and the advocacy coalition framework both Weible and Cairney?) I don’t think the references to those theories bring much benefit to the paper. Perhaps information about the theories and how you used them could be in an appendix instead of in the paper.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Policy analysis, advocacy coalition and policy implementation are the three theories to understand the policy process and all of them can be called policy (process) theories. See more:  WEIBLE, C. M. & CAIRNEY, P. 2021. Reflections and resolutions in drawing practical lessons from policy theories. In: CAIRNEY, P. & WEIBLE, C. M. (eds.) Practical Lessons from Policy Theories. 1 ed.: Bristol University Press.

How we use these theories appearing a bit later at the beginning of each section. For example, the first two paragraphs of section 3.3 introduced how the advocacy coalition framework has been applied. In addition, the dilemmas we summarized are parts of determinants of success for policy implementation effectiveness outlined by Knill and Tosun. It is impossible to mention all of the determinants in one paper and we just select three that we found downplayed in the existing literature.

Based on your suggestions, we rewrote the first paragraph of the Method section and a couple of sentences in sections 3 and 4 to provide better guidance to readers.

The references we cited providing clear instructions to readers who are interested in applying the same policy theories under different contexts and we thought we could not do better than them.

You talk about policy analysis but I wasn’t clear about what policies in particular you were analyzing.

That was unfortunately an error we introduced while rewriting and reformatting. We deleted “policy implications proposed by various scholars in international publications” by mistake.

Policy analysis is conducted by evaluating scholars’ policy implications in international publications. Most researchers propose their policy implications or recommendations at the end of their publication.

For example:

Bai, X., Shi, P., & Liu, Y. (2014). Society: realizing China's urban dream. Nature 509(7499), 158.

Sun, P., Zhou, L., Ge, D., Lu, X., Sun, D., Lu, M., & Qiao, W. (2021). How does spatial governance drive rural development in China's farming areas? Habitat International, 109, 102320. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2021.102320

Sikorski, D., Latocha, A., Szmytkie, R., Kajdanek, K., Miodońska, P., & Tomczak, P. (2020). Functional changes in peripheral mountainous areas in east central Europe between 2004 and 2016 as an aspect of rural revival? Kłodzko County case study. Applied Geography, 122, 102223. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2020.102223

Shen, M. (2020). Rural Revitalization Through State-led Programs. Singapore, Singapore: Springer and Science Press.

4. Not all rural areas are the same. Some are closer to urban areas than others or have more tourism or industrial potential etc. I am not sure where that fits but I think it bears mentioning.

That’s an important point. Thanks.

We have touched on it on line 781-789, p 24.  

Inspired by your advice, we expanded this point and separated one paragraph in Section 4.4.3 to highlight this point.

Smaller points

I wonder why the paper doesn’t include more material from your field research.

We aimed to do it initially but we later found that the paper now is too long to include more quotes or analysis. It is already at 16415 words with over 300 references.

In addition, this paper is a political science one and we want to focus more on understanding China’s choice of the strategy and the policy processes.

Most of our interviewing results are about the livelihood change of villagers and not always directly related in content to connect with our analysis of the policy process.

We may try to validate some points mentioned in this paper in our following research by including the interviewing results.

Line 685 – visualized empirical evidence? What does that mean?

Still needs some editorial work

We deleted this term to avoid more confusion.

We mean photos and videos that can provide visualized evidence to the points we argued in the texts, such as rural heritage and propaganda.

We carefully edited the paper again according to the journal’s requirement.

I am not that keen on this citation system. I have not seen it used before and it is quite confusing.

We are not very keen as well and we prefer Harvard or APA. However, it is required by the journal, see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/instructions

Conclusion

I recognize that the other reviewers did not comment much on the main content of the paper and did not seem to find the challenges with it that I did.

However, I really think this paper has the potential to be very interesting and to make an important contribution but I don’t think it is doing that the way it is currently written. This draft is much better than the last but with some more thought about what the main messages are (and perhaps a cutting away of material that doesn’t connect to that and the adding of more material that does) you could have a much stronger paper.

We’d like to thank you again for your responsible feedback and interest in our paper. Much appreciated.

Based on your advice, we restructured the paper, expanded several sections and cut other sections to make this paper easier to read. Please check the changes we made in the revised manuscript and our responses above. We believe that the paper is clearer and easier to read now.