The Russian president and Chinese head of state both seemed to have come to a trade fair. Both were cutting trade deals left, right and centre. Putin was negotiating the price of gas and oil sale to pauper Pakistan and Xi was expanding the Belt and Road Initiative into central Asia via Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the summit should have been to collectively find solutions to the menace of terrorist, slack connectivity and solving the energy crisis. Instead it ludicrously became an exercise of collective inaction.

Tensions among SCO member states ran so high that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unable to hold a one-to-one meeting with his Pakistan and Chinese counterparts.

One of the main reasons for the SCO summit to fail to come up with a joint declaration seems to be the lack of will of both China and Russia to withdraw from their desire to expand their hegemonic influence among their economic and political spheres.

None of the above countries initiated a debate in their home countries for peace and reconciliation. The war jingoism which has become the benchmark of Xi’s politics has antagonized the wider Chinese population to an extent that to reverse that could become a cause for Xi’s downfall.

Therefore, there was no collectively agreed agenda for the summit to discuss. No pre-summit discussion was held among the leaders of the member countries which would have been a precursor for any productive road map. The only country that stood its ground was India as PM Modi moved among the world leaders like a sage advising Putin to consider peaceful means to forward his diplomatic ambitions.