Factors Affecting the Trade Dependence Relationship of Asian Countries with China: Implications for China’s Belt and Road Initiative

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (B&R) has received much doubts about its impact on Asian countries. This paper studies the B&R effect from a new perspective of the trade dependence relationship, and explores this B&R impact on the influencing factors of the degree of trade dependence. By implementing a series of grouping analyses on influencing factors, this paper analyses the impact of four national characteristics, including Asian countries’ income levels, geographical location characteristics, social development levels and intimacy with China, and finally gives a robust test by combining alternative indicators of trade dependence degree based on information entropy. The empirical results show that trade dependence degree has increased after implementing the B&R, but its downward growth rate shows that the B&R has not taken over the trade dependence. The inhibiting effects of energy exports on the degree of trade dependence deny the trade binding hypothesis due to the increasing energy of export trade. Trade openness and infrastructure development had a negative effect on the degree of trade dependence, while their cross-product term weakened their respective inhibitory effects, and even more after B&R. Meanwhile, the asymmetry of trade and FDI have a significantly positive impact on the degree of trade dependence. Moreover, grouping national characteristics will bring the promoting or inhibiting effects of these influencing factors on the degree of trade dependence. The robust test presents conclusions. This paper enriches the research content on the B&R, and the findings can provide some implications on the selection of trade partners and the sustainable development of the B&R.