As the global economy enters the seventh year of a sluggish recovery, it’s time to start asking when the world will face its next downturn—and what will drive it. Over the past 50 years there has been a global recession once every eight years, on average, so the next one may be brewing. When exactly it will come is hard to call. But the policy panic in Beijing over its currency and the fall of its stock market suggest that the next global recession likely will be “made in China.”

This would represent a major break from the...