Abstract: By using a comprehensive set of indicators to measure the five countries along the maritime silk road, i.e. China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and India succeeded in escaping the "poverty trap", to achieve long-term trajectory of rapid economic and social development of the country. The empirical result demonstrates that the five countries have obvious periodic characteristics during this course of transformation; the structural gaps of each country’s economic and social development are narrowing; and the social development convergence is larger than the economic one. Thus this provides a new opportunity for China’s strategic demand of constructing a new economic tie via the Maritime Silk Road, to actively participate in multilateral cooperation, and to promote regional economic integration and community of common destiny.

Key words: poverty trap, Maritime Silk Road, development level, development trend