It was a summer night 53 years ago. Typhoon Gloria was expected to hit Taipei and heavy rains started lashing shortly before 6 o'clock. My wife asked me at supper whether I had to go out on a typhoon night. I told her I should.

To release or not to release former President Chen Shui-bian from prison isn't a question, at least now. But Hau Lung-bin, mayor of Taipei, asked that question last week to cause a stir while hoisting a name plate for a lane on which the Deng Nan-jung Foundation is located. Deng.

The Sankei Shimbun in Tokyo reported last week, again, that Japan is planning to station troops on Uotsuri-jima of the disputed Senkaku Islands because the People's Republic of China is likely to try to occupy it to make good its claim of sovereignty over the tiny uninhabited islet with rich fishing grounds and undersea oil reserves. It did so in June by quoting Minister of Defense Satoshi Morimoto.

Let's make it clear. A dispute over which country has sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais, Diaoyutai or Senkaku Islands is an endless, fruitless dispute. But a popular vernacular newspaper in Taipei, The Liberty Times, has joined in the dispute, not among the Republic of China, the People's Republic and Japan, but with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Democracy and republicanism are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. The United States is a republic, but President Abraham Lincoln described democracy as “the government of the people, by the people and for the people” in his Gettysburg address.

The advent of cable television channels has introduced political talk shows to viewers who are becoming increasingly polarized by the feud between the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan. The former wants an eventual Chinese unification, while the latter insists on independence for Taiwan.

Is there going to be a war over the Tiaoyu Islands, which the Japanese call the Senkakus? According to a joint poll conducted by Taiwan's Want Want China Times Public Opinion Survey Center and China's “Global Times (環球時報).”

When Shintaro Ishihara, governor of Tokyo, said he wanted to buy three of the Senkaku Islands a couple of months ago, the Japanese government frowned on the ultra-nationalist maverick, who is one of the few remaining incorrigible Cold Warriors.

Ichiro Ozawa, known as the “destroyer” for splitting political parties, did it again on July 2. He left the Democratic Party of Japan, which he organized to topple the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party two years ago, together with 49 lawmakers of his faction to undermine Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's grip on power.

The Jasmine Revolution of 2011 finally put Egypt under the rule of a civilian president. Islamist Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood took over at the end of last month as president of the biggest Arab country by a popular vote for the first time since Farouk was overthrown as king of Egypt by General Mohammed Naguib in 1952.