The technological spillover effect of the integration of the regional production through intermediate import (forward linkage) into global value chain can boost the space diffusion of economic activities, and is further conducive to narrow the regional gap, however, the integration of the regional production through intermediate export (backward linkage) into the global value chain can usually promote production factors to accumulate towards the developed areas, further produce economic polarization effect and enlarge regional gap. The reverse effect of the forward linkage and backward linkage of the intermediate on the regional gap is restricted and influenced by the regional economic and trade level and structure and institutional environment, so it expresses the heterogeneity in many perspectives such as regions, trade partners, institutional environment and so on. By taking China’s 30 provincial-level regions during 2000—2013 as research samples, by using Gini coefficient of prefecture-level cities of different regions’ nighttime light to measure regional gap, by using input and output model to test the forward and backward linkage index of the intermediate, the analysis shows that, as a whole, the forward linkage of the intermediate is conducive to narrow the regional gap, however, the backward linkage of the intermediate boosts the enlargement of the regional gap. The economic diffusion effect of forward linkage is mainly embodied in eastern provinces and is benefited from the intermediate import from OECD countries, however, the economic polarization effect of backward linkage only exists in the central provinces and mainly comes from the intermediate export to non-OECD countries, the higher the marketization degree of the products and factors of the regions is, the more significant the effect of the forward linkage of the intermediate on narrowing the regional gap is. Therefore, we should optimize the product structure and space layout of the intermediate trade, appropriately increase the import of the high quality intermediate from the developed countries, push forward the transformation of the intermediate export expansion from “intensive margin” to “extensive margin”, accelerate the marketization progress of the products and factors, form the linkage mechanism of deep integration into global value chain and regional economy coordinated development, and construct double-circulation new development pattern.