The changes to the manuscript made in response to the reviewers’ helpful comments improve it and make it acceptable for publication, assuming the minor comments below are addressed. Congratulations.

Minor comments

Page 4, line 24: do you mean ‘Phase out small and polluted factories’? Is ‘Phase out small, high emitting factories’ better?
5, 15: delete ‘stringent’ or make it ‘more stringent’.
8, 1: ‘… are estimated to have declined by…’
8, 8: ‘… the more stringent pollution…’
8, 15: ‘… are estimated to have increased by…’
9, 2: ‘… are estimated to have increased by…’
9, 28: ‘… After 2013, emissions of all air pollutants except… are found to have reduced as a result of pollution controls.’
10, 3: ‘… are estimated to have decreased by…’
11, 6: ‘…that don’t meet the more stringent emission…’
12, 3: ‘We estimate a faster decrease…’ – though please re-read this sentence to make it as clear as possible.
12, 10: ‘.. rapid decreases of..’
12, 11: ‘..China decreased by…’
12, 14/15: ‘…agreement with the estimated emission trend. In contrast, surface…’
12, 29: ‘…more accurate. However, surface….’
12, 33/34: ‘…are compared. However, influences….’
13, 1: ‘…due to the large..’
13, 9: ‘Many of the uncertainties…’
13, 10: ‘.. have less impact on emission trends (Lu et al., 2011), but non-compliance with…’
14, 4: ‘… PM2.5 concentrations to 18% below…’ – please check this what you mean.

Please do your best to include the final DOI in the published version.