# Construction of the Belt and Road Trade Cooperation Network from the Multi-Distances Perspective
## 4 Construction of Trade Cooperation Network
### Division of Trade Cooperation Circles  
According to the computed results of the comprehensive distance indices between China and the Belt and Road countries, the comprehensive distance indices between China and the 62 Belt and Road countries were divided into four intervals: \((-\infty,-0.7)\), \((-0.7,-0.3)\), \((-0.3,0.1)\), and \((0.1,\infty)\). As such, we obtained four trade cooperation circles, as shown in Table 5.  
According to the comprehensive distance indices measurement results for China and the Belt and Road countries, a spatial distribution map of the four circles was obtained (Figure 1). 1. The first circle has the smallest comprehensive distance indices from China, encompassing Russia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, and some countries in the Middle East. Overall, these countries have the shortest or a relatively shorter geographic distance and cultural distance from China, bordering on or close to China. These countries have the least barriers to trade cooperation, the lowest transaction costs, and the greatest possibility for trade cooperation. 2. The second circle has relatively small comprehensive distance indices from China, mainly including Central Asian and South Asian countries. These countries have a relatively short \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Russia** & **India** & **Turkey** & **Indonesia** & **Saudi Arabia** & **Poland** \\ \hline \(-5.8483\) & \(-4.2089\) & \(-3.4218\) & \(-2.6759\) & \(-2.5834\) & \(-1.8998\) \\ \hline
**Iran** & **The United Arab Emirates** & **Egypt** & **Singapore** & **Malaysia** \\ \(-1.6267\) & \(-1.3038\) & \(-1.2573\) & \(-0.9991\) & \(-0.9593\) \\ \hline
**Czechia** & **Thailand** & **Iraq** & **Romania** & **Qatar** & **Kuwait** \\ \(-0.8672\) & \(-0.8031\) & \(-0.7823\) & \(-0.7410\) & \(-0.6542\) & \(-0.6408\) \\ \hline
**Philippines** & **Pakistan** & **Israel** & **Banglades** & **Kazakhstan** & **Kyrgyzstan** \\ \(-0.6331\) & \(-0.5914\) & \(-0.5630\) & \(-0.4771\) & \(-0.4618\) & \(-0.4176\) \\ \hline
**Vietnam** & **Ukraine** & **Slovakia** & **Oman** & **Brunei** & **Lebanon** \\ \(-0.4150\) & \(-0.3530\) & \(-0.3211\) & \(-0.3112\) & \(-0.2978\) & \(-0.2893\) \\ \hline
**Myanmar** & **Yemen** & **Jordan** & **East Timor** & **Croatia** & **Nepal** \\ \(-0.2588\) & \(-0.2555\) & \(-0.2515\) & \(-0.2487\) & \(-0.2301\) & \(-0.2234\) \\ \hline
**Bulgaria** & **Bahrain** & **Albania** & **Azerbaijan** & **Uzbekistan** & **Cambodia** \\ \(-0.2078\) & \(-0.2007\) & \(-0.1947\) & \(-0.1902\) & \(-0.1810\) & \(0.1772\) \\ \hline
**Turkmenistan** & **Lao Republic** & **Slovenia** & **Afghanistan** & **Serbia** & **Sri Lanka** \\ \(0.1715\) & \(0.1582\) & \(0.1314\) & \(0.1286\) & \(0.1273\) & \(0.1260\) \\ \hline
**Tajikistan** & **Maldives** & **Macedonia** & **Bhutan** & **Hungary** & **Georgia** \\ \(0.0653\) & \(0.0571\) & \(-0.0486\) & \(-0.0398\) & \(-0.0303\) & \(-0.0285\) \\ \hline
**Armenia** & **Bosnia and Herzegovina** & **Montenegro** & **Belarus** & **Estonia** \\ \(-0.0232\) & \(-0.0025\) & \(0.0454\) & \(0.1154\) & \(0.1319\) \\ \hline
**Moldova** & **Mongolia** & **Lithuania** & **Latvia** & & \\ \(0.1364\) & \(0.2002\) & \(0.2047\) & \(0.4712\) & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Comprehensive distance indices between China and the Belt and Road countries. geographic distance, factor endowment distance, and cultural distance from China, hence a relatively higher possibility for trade cooperation. 3. The third circle has relatively large comprehensive distance indices from China, mainly including some countries in Southeast and South Asia. These countries feature larger cultural distance and shorter institutional distance from China, hence having relatively higher barriers to trade cooperation. 4. The fourth circle has the largest comprehensive distance indices from China, including Mongolia, and Central and Eastern European countries.