1. China and Hong Kong have a 50 year One Country, Two Systems approach to governance, which has caused outcry and protests in Hong Kong over the past year. China and Taiwan, however, do not have such an agreement which has contributed to decades of internal tension and external confusion. Given what we know about China and Hong Kong, what do you think the right solution is moving towards 2047? What implications might your solution have on the China-Taiwan relationship?
2. In 2009, the Indonesian government passed a law that all smallholder farmers could slash and burn 5 acres of land. This was intended to give them access to land and help to bring them out of poverty. In 2015, massive amounts of harmful smoke and haze took over the Southeast Asian skies as fires raged in Indonesia. Corporate farms and smallholder farmers alike were blamed for burning these fires to make more room for palm plantations due to soaring global demand for palm oil. Discuss how this law, intended to get farmers out of poverty, could contribute to massive regional smoke.
