Why are Sino-US ties 'the most consequential'?

When John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, said the US-China relationship is "the most consequential" bilateral relationship of the 21st century in Washington on Tuesday, I realized he had said the same thing a few weeks before.

Allen didn't elaborate even this time, and he didn't need to. At least three public discussions were held on Tuesday in different venues blocks apart, and they all focused on China-US relations, from trade conflicts to long-term interests to myths the two peoples hold about each other. It's not surprising that so many events on a single day were devoted to reviewing the status quo and trends in the relations between the world's top two economies because they are locked in an escalating trade conflict and facing rising tensions on many other fronts.

But the takeaways from the discussions were interesting, which mostly favor de-escalation of the trade conflict, prefer cooperation to rivalry and seek to bridge the gaps that separate the two countries.