Global dominance – along with diseases of affluence – will shift from the West to resource-rich regions with growing middle classes such as Africa, India, China and South America, speakers said at the Second World Emerging Industries Summit in China, according to a report in KansasCityStar.

Along with growing wealth will come Western ailments that plague many successful people living in the West – such as high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory and other illnesses, presenters at the summit warned.

Business, government and university officials from nearly two dozen countries attended the summit in Wuhan, China, where highways and streets were clogged with “American-size” cars and the air was thick with pollution making it difficult to breathe, according to a report written by Lewis W. Diuguid.

The new economy created by innovation will need a worldwide security council to hold it accountable, said Dominique de Villepin, former prime minister of France.

Because of technology – renewable energy, banking changes, smart grids and 3-D printers – centralized manufacturing plants which dominated the Industrial Age will become a thing of the past, speakers predicted.

The Western world has produced everything from the steam engine to the Internet and the developing world has absorbed much of it, including Western education, transportation, medical advances music, fast-food, clothing, entertainment, art, technology, ideology and culture, the report said. Dominance will shift to developing nations, and technology will cause it to happen quickly, according to John and Doris Naisbitt, authors of “China’s Megatrends,” the report said.

Examples of rapid change include the Arab Spring, access to Cuba and Pope Francis’ New World selection and direction for Catholics. This kind of “soft power” is spreading while the “hard power” of centralization, militarization and inflexibility keeps receding, John Naisbitt said in the KansasCityStar report.

The shrinking U.S. middle class needs to ask if U.S. consumers will be replaced by the emerging middle class in developing nations as the target market for products and services, the report said.

As the people of emerging countries push for the lifestyle of the West, the high price they pay is deteriorating health, the report said.

In medicine, the focus will be more on prevention than cures, forecasters predicted. High blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory and other illnesses plague successful Westerners, other presenters at the summit warned.

Wang Jian, the board chairman of the Beijing Genomics Institution, said at the summit, “If not for health, what is the purpose of growth industries? People are the most important factor.”