Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi shared a stage at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek this week, prompting some to speculate about an emerging international bloc. Boosters cast it as a rising rival to the G7 and G20. VICO's read is more skeptical: the members are not nearly as aligned as the photo suggests.

The VICO Causal Explorer finds the low odds of cooperation come from many places at once. The building blocks of a real bloc, from customs harmonization to flexible consensus mechanisms, all sit at long-shot probabilities. The members are simply too disparate. Sino-Indian friction, at 74%, is the clearest example, one of several competing agendas inside a consensus-bound group. Factor in differences between India and Pakistan, Central Asian states focused on investment over international power struggles, and NATO member Turkey, and the headline numbers follow: just 11% for a coordinated commitment members actually implement, and 4% for a binding pact.

The summit will generate striking headlines and warm statements, and none of it should be mistaken for a functioning economic bloc. Beneath the group photo sits a set of members with clashing interests, and the groundwork for cooperation barely registers. For anyone weighing the "new G20" narrative, price the picture cheaply.