Economic Development Status of the Countries along the Belt and Road and Their Correlations with Population and Carbon Emissions

The construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road are important measures for allowing China to expand its opening up to the outside world under the background of economic globalization. Based on this consideration, and from the perspective of geo-economics, this study uses a variety of mathematical statistical methods to analyze the economic development status and differences among the 30 countries along the Belt and Road. In addition, the correlations between GDP, population and carbon emissions in these countries are also analyzed. The results show that the current economic development levels of the countries along the Belt and Road are quite variable; the gaps between the indicators of the economic development of the countries along the Belt and Road are convergent; the GDP, population, and carbon emissions of the countries along the Belt and Road each showed an overall upward trend during the study period, and the changes in these three values showed significant correlations. Across all countries, the correlation coefficients between GDP and population (0.989), between GDP and carbon emissions (0.995), and between population and carbon emissions (0.993), all indicate that the correlations between GDP, population and carbon emissions are very high. Among them, GDP has the highest correlation with carbon emissions, reaching 0.995. Regression analysis shows that the value of R2 reached 0.995, indicating that the regression fitting effect is very good and the calculation result is highly reliable. Based on these results, this paper proposes the following two suggestions: (1) Promoting the Belt and Road initiative should handle the relationship between developing and developed countries; and (2) Promoting the Belt and Road initiative should also be linked to China's domestic regional development strategy.