Although China has entered the era of service economy and the service industry plays a leading role in economic growth, the proportion of China's service industry in GDP still has a certain gap compared with the world average level. The accounting results based on the 2002-2012 input-output table show that the service input rate of China's service sector has risen from 44.33% in 2002 to 55.25% in 2012, which indicates that most of the intermediate input required by the service industry comes from the service industry itself, that is, the service industry has independent development path dependence. Empirical research based on panel data of 30 provinces and cities across China from 2000 to 2014 shows that the development of the service industry is largely affected by its own development level. When the current per capita output value of the service industry increases by 1%, it will increase the per capita output value of the service industry by 0.39% after one year, and the per capita output value of the service industry will increase by 0.32% after two years. The robustness test by region and industry also supports the above conclusion. The robustness test also found that the independent development path dependence of the service industry in the eastern region is higher than that of the central and western regions, and the independent development path dependence of the financial industry and the real estate industry is more obvious. When formulating service industry development policies, Chinese governments at all levels should not only put forward the goal of increasing the proportion of service industry in GDP, but should better understand the objective laws in the development process of the service industry and guide the self-development of the service industry.
