Emirza Adi Syailendra is a PhD Candidate at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), The Australian National University (ANU), under the supervision of Professor Evelyn Goh. Emir’s thesis investigates the persistence of maritime Southeast Asian countries’ restraint towards China in the post-Cold War period, despite China’s increased assertiveness in the South China Sea. He is developing an innovative framework to unpack the negotiation of tacit understandings to help answer the puzzle of mutual restraint between China and Southeast Asia. For his thesis, Emir spent time in the field, including Indonesia and Malaysia, conducting interviews with the relevant elite.