Rising sun: Douglas MacArthur will likely soon be forced to roll over in his grave, not once but several times. He is the five-star American general who, at home in Tokyo, turned postwar Japan from a nationalistic, militaristic state into a thriving democratic one that constitutionally renounced war and used technological ingenuity to rebuild, for decades a highly successful move — think Sony, think Honda, think Toyota, the list is long. Now, an aggressive new female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, seems ready to rethink Japan along the lines of America’s openly war-oriented president. She wants to liquidate Tokyo’s longstanding ban on military exports so the country can make quick cash from sophisticated-weapons sales to nations that have fallen out of favor with Washington. She also wishes to eliminate a constitutional ban on war that was largely MacArthur’s brainchild. In essence, Japan intends to fully rearm after decades of dependence on the United States. This of course will not please archrival China and means Tokyo will very likely resist any effort by Beijing to make Taiwan its own. Boiled down to its essence, Japan and China seem on a collision course that has the potential to plunge the entire Pacific Rim into incendiary chaos. MacArthur acted as he did specifically to avert any future trouble between these historic enemies. But just as the United Nations has been set aside, so has the MacArthur legacy. And for all this we have a would-be napoleonic president to thank.