What does present perfect mean?

English learners often get confused when they hear the phrase present perfect. After all, it does not seem to be a present tense.

For instance:

I have been to China three times and each time happened in the past. So why do we use a present tense for this? Why don’t we just say, ‘I went to China three times’?

The important thing to note is that the present perfect tense explains a connection between the present and the past. When we say we have been to China three times, our time reference is so far or until now. We don’t actually use the phrases so far or until now, because the meaning is contained in the tense itself.