The relationship between industrialization and carbon emissions is incredibly complicated. Numerous academics have studied this subject in-depth and produced a wealth of research findings, but there has not been a comprehensive evaluation and analysis. As a result, the Web of Science Core Collection is used as the study’s data source, and China is chosen as the research object. Visualization software CiteSpace and VOSviewer are utilized to conduct cooperation network analysis, co-citation analysis and cluster analysis to analyze the research progress and frontier of the impact of industrialization on carbon emissions in China (IICEC). The results indicate that: (1) Since 2007, the research enthusiasm for IICEC has grown and gone through three stages; (2) Most research institutions and authors are from China, and significant transnational research teams have not yet been established; (3) The most popular journal for this research is Journal of Cleaner Production, whereas Energy Policy has the most citations; (4) The overall research hotspots can be divided into five clusters. Based on these findings, possible future research frontiers were identified, including carbon emission decoupling analysis and carbon transfer, life cycle analysis and life cycle cost analysis of the industry, and embodied carbon measure.