Land System Reform in Rural China: Path and Mechanism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article could be improved by adding a comparative approach with countries and agricultural systems from the region (Japan, South Korea, etc.), that will show the agricultural performance in  a comparative perspective.

Author Response

We are sincerely grateful for your critical comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Land System Reform in Rural China: Path and Mechanism”. The comments were valuable, provided important guidance for our research and were very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We studied all comments carefully and made corrections that we hope would meet with approval. We have highlighted them within the document by using bold or coloured text. You will find our point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments/questions in this response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The section 2 on the theoretical needs  to be improved and unfolded to present the actual framework, rather than just presenting a huge number of Chinese references. Furthermore, the methodology used for the analyses needs to be presented and explained up front.  

The article relies heavily on Chinese literature and is difficult to access for international scholars ... see e.g. article of Frank Byamugisha in Land 2021, 10(2), 176 Experiences and Development Impacts of Securing Land Rights at Scale in Developing Countries: Case Studies of China and Vietnam". 

The figures 1 and 2 needs to be explained in the text and not just referred to. 

The use of a complex equation for measuring and analyzing the impact of the various policy reforms is not convincing and needs to be explained and justified. E.g. one would expect that the issue of poverty reduction would be a key issue ?  

Author Response

We are sincerely grateful for your critical comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Land System Reform in Rural China: Path and Mechanism”. The comments were valuable, provided important guidance for our research and were very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We studied all comments carefully and made corrections that we hope would meet with approval. We have highlighted them within the document by using bold or coloured text. You will find our point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments/questions in this response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Recommendations to authors:

- Specify  the aim of the research,  research questions, and the research method

- Mention the source of the figures and tables (even is author's elaboration)

- Reorganise the content of section 5. Prospects and Predicament of Land Policy Reform in China: some parts of the content should  in the Results section, but other information in Results Discussion and Conclusions (add these sections)

As a general comment,  we appreciate that the prospects made (section 5. Prospects and Predicament of Land Policy Reform in China) are general; it should be based on a  more in-depth analysis, also considering the influence of the current socio-economic and political factors, national and international trends. Also, this theoretical research would be more meaningful if it would be complemented with empirical research (e.g., interviews with farmers or public decision-makers on the field).

Author Response

We are sincerely grateful for your critical comments and thoughtful suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Land System Reform in Rural China: Path and Mechanism”. The comments were valuable, provided important guidance for our research and were very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We studied all comments carefully and made corrections that we hope would meet with approval. We have highlighted them within the document by using bold or coloured text. You will find our point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments/questions in this response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

 Accept in present form

Author Response

Thank you again for your valuable suggestions

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.