TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) will visit Washington, D.C. in the near future for a plaque unveiling ceremony of the party’s representative office in the U.S., Chen Yixin (陳以信), a KMT legislator said Saturday (Feb. 5).

Chen, who was in Washington, D.C. to make preparations for the office’s opening, said he called on the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Washington headquarters Friday morning and held talks with White House officials to exchange views on the situation in the Taiwan Strait, according to a press release. The legislator said Chu’s visit was highly welcomed by the officials.

Chen also had a virtual meeting with renowned Taiwan studies scholars, which was co-organized by the KMT’s international department and the Institute for Taiwan-America Studies, a D.C.-based think tank that Chen heads, per CNA.

Former AIT Chairman of the Board and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Richard Bush; Johns Hopkins University adjunct professor Dave Brown; former White House National Security Council Director Evan Medeiros, and Director of the KMT international department Huang Chieh-cheng (黃介正), attended the meeting. Chen said the scholars affirmed the importance of the KMT's reopening of a Washington office and were eager to increase bilateral exchanges in the future.

Additionally, Chen visited the Project 2049 Institute to meet with the think tank’s president, John Gastright, and CEO Mark Stokes, as well as other research staff.