When industrial linkage becomes an internal driving force: insights from the development models of China's ancient road villages

When Industrial Linkage Becomes an Endogenous Driving Force: Insights from the Development Model of China's Ancient Road Villages

From "External Driving" to "Endogenous Linkage"

For a long time, mainstream narratives on mountain area development have focused on external variables such as national macro policies, fiscal transfer payments, and infrastructure investment. China's poverty alleviation campaign has achieved remarkable results, but in some remote villages, once external support weakens, industries may stagnate or even regress. Researchers point out that the existence of poverty relapse risk compels grassroots communities to seek self-sustaining economic momentum.

Fuyang District is located in the economically developed Yangtze River Delta region, and its 12 ancient villages retain the memory of historical transportation arteries—roads that were once lifelines for commercial travel. In the contemporary era, these villages face typical pressures such as population aging, industrial fragmentation, and insufficient resource integration. Through field surveys, in-depth interviews, and data analysis, researchers discovered a common structure: the industries within these villages do not exist in isolation, but can be divided into core, related, and radiating layers according to function, forming a dynamic synergy.

Core, Related, and Radiating: The Synergy Mechanism of a Micro-Industrial Ecosystem

The so-called "core industry" refers to the economic activities with the deepest local rootedness and competitive advantage in a village—perhaps traditional handicrafts, specialty agriculture, or cultural heritage tourism. "Related industries" are the segments that provide supporting services and extend value around the core industry, potentially including raw material supply, processing experiences, accommodation and dining, and transportation services. "Radiating industries" further expand outward, connecting with markets beyond the region through brand effects, such as e-commerce channels, cultural and creative derivative products, or cross-village shared exhibition platforms.

Research shows that the key to this three-tier structure's ability to generate economic growth lies in "linkage" rather than "linear accumulation along an industrial chain." When the core industry generates a steady flow of visitors or orders, related industries gain space to absorb local employment; radiating industries, in turn, feed market information and economies of scale back to the core industry. This reciprocal feedback loop enables the village economy to no longer rely on a single pillar, but instead become a self-regulating micro-industrial ecosystem.

The research further emphasizes that linkage should occur not only within a single village, but also between villages. Neighboring villages can share brands, co-build infrastructure, and jointly hold exhibitions, thereby avoiding homogeneous competition and forming regional industrial clusters. This "cross-village network" is precisely the most innovative part of the endogenous development model—it avoids the problems of insufficient scale and weakened risk resistance found in the traditional "one village, one product" model.

Policy Implications of Endogenous Development: From Assistance to Empowerment

The policy implications of this model are profound. The traditional externally driven model focuses on capital input and project implementation, yet easily overlooks the organizational capacity and industrial coordination mechanisms within villages. Endogenous development, by contrast, requires the government to shift from "leader" to "enabler": providing skills training, digital infrastructure, and regional coordination platforms, rather than directly deciding what to produce.This approach has direct relevance to China's rural revitalization strategy. Studies indicate that industrial linkage can effectively absorb middle-aged and older labor, reducing the damage that population loss causes to community structures. At the same time, because industries are rooted in local resources and culture, their resilience against relocation and their sustainability are far higher than those of externally introduced factories or industrial parks. In other words, endogenous development is not self-seclusion, but rather building open connections based on local advantages, maintaining economic control while attracting external markets.

Global Lessons: Providing New Tools for "Balanced Development"

Although the research subjects are ancient Chinese villages, the endogenous logic of industrial linkage also has reference value for rural policies in developed economies worldwide. The UK's "levelling up" agenda has long focused on urban-rural development imbalances, with traditional strategies often concentrating on infrastructure connectivity and relocating large employers, while giving less thought to how to activate horizontal coordination among local industries. The experience of Fuyang villages shows that even in highly urbanized areas, small-scale, low-cost industrial networks can produce measurable economic effects.

From a more abstract industrial policy perspective, this research extends the theory of "industrial clusters" from urban industrial zones to the rural scale, and provides an operational pathway for the "sustainable livelihoods" framework. It reminds people that supply chain resilience and local employment resilience need not be achieved only through high-tech manufacturing or large-scale infrastructure. Sometimes, reconnecting the neglected nodes of the local economy can also yield unexpectedly long-term returns.

Conclusion: The Village as a Basic Unit of Industrial Strategy

The value of this research lies in shifting people's focus from "what industries to introduce" to "how to connect existing industries." For policymakers and industry researchers alike, the case of the ancient trail villages in Fuyang proves that the countryside is not a passive object awaiting external change, but rather possesses the capacity for endogenous evolution. When core, related, and radiating industries form an organic network, a village is no longer merely a place of residence, but a miniature yet resilient economy.

In an era when the tension between globalization and localization is increasingly pronounced, this village-based model of industrial linkage may precisely offer an underappreciated answer to balanced growth.