Presidents of Taiwan have visited the U.S. 29 times since the first visit in 1994, the most recent being current President Tsai Ing-wen's visit to New York City and Los Angeles in the spring of this year. However, no Taiwanese president has ever visited the White House.
A few weeks after U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reaffirmed U.S. support for the "one China" policy, Lai Ching-te, vice president of Taiwan and presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), announced that a White House visit would be a symbolic measure of Taiwan's progress toward further autonomy.
