Amid the profound restructuring of global value chains and the intensification of external shocks, enhancing the autonomy and controllability of industrial chains is of great significance for coordinating high-level opening-up and economic security. Based on the input-output analytical framework, this paper constructs a measurement system of global value chain risk exposure from the perspectives of intermediate goods, gross output, and value added. It systematically characterizes the structural features and evolutionary trends of industrial risk exposure across countries from both export and import perspectives,with the aim of identifying the external constraints facing industrial chain resilience and self-reliance. The findings are as follows. First, risk exposure in global value chains exhibits significant perspective-dependent differences and structural heterogeneity across countries. Specifically, the intermediate-goods perspective primarily reflects the security and stability of access to critical inputs, the gross-output perspective captures the transmission and amplification of risks through production networks, while the value-added perspective better characterizes external dependence in value creation and value realization processes. Second, from a cross-country structural perspective, China, the United States, and Germany occupy key positions in the global production network, playing important supporting roles in regional value chains in Asia, North America, and Europe, respectively. Third, at the sectoral level, China’s export-side risks are mainly concentrated in technology- and equipment-intensive manufacturing industries as well as related producer services, whereas import-side risks primarily stem from energy, basic raw materials, and critical intermediate goods sectors, exhibiting a structural pattern of “upstream resource dependence and downstream manufacturing embedding.” By providing a multidimensional analysis, this paper systematically reveals the sources and structural characteristics of global value chain risk exposure, offering empirical evidence for identifying critical dependency links and enhancing the autonomy and controllability of China’s industrial chain.