Dr Rebecca Strating is the Executive Director of La Trobe Asia and Senior Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics and Philosophy at La Trobe University. She researches Australian politics and foreign policy, small states and maritime disputes in Asia-Pacific. She is the author of several monographs and journal articles, including “Defending the Maritime Rules-Based Order: Regional Responses to the South China Sea Disputes” published by the East West Center in 2020. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Boyer Prize by the Australian Institute of International Affairs for best article published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs in 2017 for the paper “Timor-Leste’s Foreign Policy Approach to the Timor Sea: Pipeline or Pipedream?”