With the continuous progress of regional economic integration, the trade network of countries along the Belt and Road is changing constantly. The trade relationships between countries are becoming more and more complicated, intertwined and interdependent. However, most previous literature on the trade network of countries along the Belt and Road tends to focus on the static descriptions of network topology features, and there is a lack of explanation on the dynamic change and its mechanism.

This paper tries to explain the dynamic change of goods trade network structure and its impact mechanism of countries along the Belt and Road. We build Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model（TERGM）and Separable Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model（STERGM）, using Dynamic Network Analysis to study the change of goods trade network structure and its impact mechanism of countries along the Belt and Road. We find out that the dynamic network models TERGM and STERGM overcome the shortcomings of traditional ERGM method, which is limited to static analysis, and can well capture the impact mechanism of the change of goods trade network structure; the structure of network has a certain heterogeneity, and there is a “rich club” phenomenon in the network. This phenomenon is related to the increasing hierarchical effect in the network; the forming and maintaining of the trade relationships are significantly affected by the countries’ economy. Countries with high economic development have stronger tendency to trade, but after the implementation of the Belt and Road strategy, this tendency has weakened, and the probability for countries with low economic development to expand trade relations has increased. The conclusion of this paper indicates that China should complement the industries with countries along the Belt and Road to make them develop comparative advantages, coordinate trade competition among countries, and establish and maintain multilateral and multi-level regional partnerships.

The academic value of this paper could be concluded in two aspects: In research content, this paper analyzes the dynamic change of goods trade network structure and its impact mechanism of countries along the Belt and Road, and discusses the positive role of the Belt and Road strategy on promoting trade relations between countries, combined with challenges. It is of great realistic significance for continuing to promote the Belt and Road strategy, balancing the interests of trade among countries and eliminating the possible trade frictions between China and other countries in the future. In research methods, this paper builds TERGM and STERGM including endogenous and exogenous factors to study the change of goods trade network structure of countries along the Belt and Road and discuss its impact mechanism. The Dynamic Network Analysis method in this paper provides a new research idea for analyzing the change of goods trade network structure of countries along the Belt and Road.