Taipei: United States Senator Tammy Duckworth has urged countries to exercise their freedom of navigation rights by transiting waters claimed by China as a way to keep China from establishing jurisdiction over those waters. Duckworth made the appeal in response to a question at the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei on Wednesday on the importance of international responses to China's attempts to conduct "law enforcement patrols" in waters east of Taiwan.According to Focus Taiwan, the patrols began in early June, with Chinese coast guard vessels requiring commercial vessels passing through the area to report their destinations. "It is important for the norms, international norms, for us to continue to transit these waters in accordance with international law and not allow the Chinese to establish any foothold in creating a different order," Duckworth said.The issue could also have implications for the Taiwan Strait, Duckworth suggested, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might at some point requi re all ships transiting the strait separating China and Taiwan to first register with the Chinese coast guard. "We cannot allow that to happen," she stated.To prevent that scenario, the Illinois senator emphasized that countries must take a united stand in exercising their right to transit the Taiwan Strait and overtly reject attempts by the CCP to impose new norms and rules.Earlier in the day, Kuan Bi-ling, who heads the Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) that is hosting the conference, highlighted the danger of China's "gray zone" activities gradually chipping away at the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait. Kuan noted that while the international community often opposes unilateral changes to the status quo, it is already being altered through continuous aggressive actions that fall below the threshold of conventional war.Among the examples cited were actions like sabotaging undersea communications cables, conducting law enforcement operations in waters off Taiwan, and military exercises in the country's vicin ity. "In the end, we might suddenly find that even without the outbreak of a decisive war, the status quo no longer exists," Kuan warned.She pointed to the Chinese coast guard's use of ramming tactics and water cannons against Philippine coast guard vessels as actions of a similar nature. Kuan urged democracies to identify patterns in China's gray zone actions across different maritime areas and to establish a common understanding of the "status quo," which would facilitate coordinated responses to potential escalations and crises.