Analysis and Comparison of the Industrial Economic Resilience in the Taihu Lake Basin under the 2008 Financial Crisis and the 2018 Sino-US Trade War

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper assesses regional economic resilience regarding the US-China trade conflict. The thesis of this work is clear. It tries to draw out some political implications against external economic threats and argues that the government's actions should differ across regions by proving that their resistance/resilience reflects the nature of the local/regional economy. With some minor revisions, this paper seems enough to meet the publication standards of Land journal.

My suggestions are noted below:

1. In the introduction, please clearly state your research question(s). While reading this part, I felt confused about what this work was trying to achieve. Lines 53-57 seem like RQ(s) but they should be more clearly and succinctly stated. Although it becomes clear in the later part, clear RQ(s) are necessary to help readers follow the manuscript.

2. Although the authors somehow try to defend why they had to use geographic boundaries (TLB) for the study area in the last paragraph of this paper, it still does not make sense. This paper explores regional economies and discusses political implications. It should use political boundaries. Please state how your methods can manage this critical limitation.

3. There are some typos and grammar errors, such as line 129. And some parts are too redundant and long to follow. Suh as Line 133-137. 5 lines for one sentence? industrial spatial integration development from the perspective of spatial evolution? The authors may find native speaekes.

 

4. Please state Figure # in the manuscript. I don't see Figure 1 and Figure 11.

 

5. About Figure 1, how does this elevation map have to do with this paper? Please clearly delineate the political boundaries of each province (what parts are taken off because of this basin boundary).

 

6. Line 236-241. More specific explanation on these thresholds is needed. Just citing one paper does not seem reasonable to use these numbers. I believe these threshold numbers should vary by different regions/cities and even change over time.

7. Line 364. LTB?

8. Line 376-379. The more cities rely on the domestic economy, the higher resilience they have? On the surface, this doesn't seem to make sense. The authors may refer to the "capacity" of the regional economic systems.

 

9. Line 437. Diversity and Specialization seem contrasting terms. Need more explanations in association with resilience definitions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

. The manuscript  is interesting and valuable. 

The manuscript  should be  accept after minor revision (text editing). 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Based on the perspective of spatial evolution, this paper uses a number of indicators to study the evolution characteristics of industrial economic resilience in the Taihu Basin under the background of 2008 financial crisis and 2018 Sino-US trade conflict. It has important practical significance and theoretical value for promoting the high-quality development of regional economy, and can be optimized from the following aspects.

(1) It is suggested to clarify in the title that the research content of the article is carried out under the background of crisis.

(2) In the introduction part, it is necessary to further summarize the innovation of this paper compared with the previous research.

(3) The visualization effect of the map needs to be further improved. For example, the Su-xi-Chang metropolitan areas are mentioned several times in the paper, but it is difficult to identify the specific location of these areas in the map. The parameters in FIG. 6, 8, 10, 11, 13 and 15 retain too many decimal points. Place names outside Taihu Lake basin may not be displayed.

(4) Based on the results of this paper, it is suggested to further elaborate the practical guidance suggestions for the development of Taihu Basin. For example, it is mentioned in the article that "Hangzhou needs to start from the top-level mechanism of the metropolitan circle and coordinate development with neighbouring cities in many fields such as industrial layout, major infrastructure construction and business environment, to cooperate and win together, share benefits and complement each other's advantages." Then how Hangzhou should take actions to improve economic resilience in the Taihu Basin should also be specified.

(5) There are some errors in the wording of some chapters, which need to be carefully checked and revised.

(6) This paper only qualitatively analyzes the reasons for the toughness evolution of prefecture-level cities in Taihu Basin. In the future, it can be combined with quantitative methods to analyze the toughness evolution mechanism in more details.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf