That led to profound exchanges between the people of the two cities, both listed in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

"Shanghai, like Milan, is the place where different people meet to know each other, to exchange and to produce. Then after that, you create new opportunities, new business, new design and new possibilities," said Cibic, an honorary professor at Shanghai's Tongji University, who had lived in Milan since 1977 and relocated to Shanghai in 2018.

As an internationally acclaimed designer and architect, and a pivotal contributor to postmodern design as the co-founder of the renowned Memphis Group, Cibic said Shanghai reminds him of Milan's vibrant atmosphere in the 1980s.

"I like incredibly how Shanghai is fashionable, as now here people are expressing themselves through the way they dress, which was the same thing happening in Milan in the '80s… Shanghai and China are becoming now more self-confident with their past," said Cibic.

Mario Boselli, president of the Italy China Council Foundation, a Milan-based nonprofit association dedicated to promoting the development of Sino-Italian relations, has been dealing with China since 1978, the year that the reform and opening-up began. He agrees with Cibic.