Our public criticism of the People's Republic of China for human rights violations, encroachment upon and militarisation of the South China Sea, alleged cyber attacks and other espionage activities and politically harassing Chinese-Australian residents - as well as our banning of Chinese companies from contributing to building Australia's 5G wireless network - have, not surprisingly, severely soured the relationship between the two countries.

China angrily refutes all such charges, even though evidence for some seems irrefutable. And to be realistic the future is likely to see such burrs between the nations continuing. China's ambassador to Australia recently hinted at better relations between the two countries in the coming year, but China will without doubt continue to take offence at and punitively react to any perceived criticisms aimed in its direction.

With nearly a third of our total export income dependent on China, any decision by the PRC to punish Australia for real or imagined slights by cutting us out of much of its market would have enormous effects on our prosperity. For example, if the central committee of the Communist Party of China suddenly stopped the flow of Chinese students to our universities, the financial health of virtually all of those institutions would be placed in serious jeopardy. Likewise a CCP ruling forbidding Chinese tourists from travelling here would undermine that market instantly. Choosing not to purchase Australian coal would be similarly calamitous.

Any such cold-shouldering ultimately resides in the hands of the Chinese government and is an uneasy possibility we simply have to live with. Also hanging over all of this currently is the serious uncertainty for the whole global community posed by the evolving China coronavirus epidemic outbreak.

While the political uncertainty will always be there, it is worth remembering that there is more to Asia than China. Fast-growing developing economies elsewhere in the region offer opportunities to widen our market presence and lessen trade dependence on the People's Republic. India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, amongst others, all offer significant trade opportunities.

India, in particular, holds enormous market prospects. With China trade the principal focus, India has to date to a degree slipped under Australia's export radar. There are of course exceptions to this. The increasing recruiting of Indian students by Australian universities is the most obvious one. But by and large the economic relationship between the two countries is considerably weaker than might be expected.

Structural trends in India, however, clearly highlight the potential for this to change rapidly across multiple sectors. Recent research from the US Brookings Institution, for example, foresees India having more entrants into the next billion members of the global middle class than China - 380 million to 350 million - emphasising its burgeoning market consumption capacity.

The increasing urbanisation of India's population is another major trend that will create demand for imported products - foodstuffs, for example - that Australia is well-placed to supply. United Nations population projections released in 2018 estimate India's urban population will grow by 416 million people between then and mid-century. The projected China urban increase over the same period is 255 million (urbanisation elsewhere in the Asia region will have similar implications for market demand).

Another demographic trend likely to encourage and facilitate trade with India is the rapid growth of the Indian diaspora in Australia and the connections and expertise those people bring with them.

For Australia to capitalise on the opportunities India offers us, however, "India literacy" needs to be advanced amongst our business and political leaders. In particular, the great internal diversity of India - demographic, cultural, social, economic, linguistic and environmental - needs to be learnt and acted upon.

For example, 22 major ("scheduled") languages and hundreds of different dialects are spoken across the country. Income levels and economic bases similarly vary greatly between states, as do education levels.

Similar scope for export expansion exists with numerous other developing nations across the region. For instance, while China and India between themselves are projected to provide the majority of the next billion entrants into the middle class, the Brookings research estimates that a further 210 million will come from the rest of Asia.

In the Brookings estimation, Indonesia, for example, will likely enter the top 10 middle-class markets by 2020. By 2030 Pakistan could have a middle-class market in excess of $1 trillion, and the Philippines middle class could spend more than Italy's.

In short, there is clearly more to Asia than China (and our current other major Asian trading partners, Japan and South Korea) and the sooner we capitalise on that economically (and geostrategically) the better.

Once the bushfire crisis is over, it is important that Prime Minister Morrison prioritises an India trip to replace the scheduled one necessarily cancelled earlier this month.