Biden vows to stand with Asia on freedom

President Joe Biden told Southeast Asian nations on Wednesday the United States would stand with them in defending freedom of the seas and democracy and called China’s actions towards Taiwan “coercive” and a threat to peace and stability.

Speaking at a virtual East Asia Summit attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Biden said Washington would start talks with partners in the

Indo-Pacific about developing a regional economic framework, something critics say his regional strategy has lacked.

Southeast Asia has become a strategic battleground between the United States and China, which controls most of the South China Sea, and Beijing has turned up military and political pressure on fiercely democratic Taiwan, a self-ruled island Beijing considers its own.

Biden reiterated that the United States had a “rock-solid” commitment to Taiwan. “We are deeply concerned by China’s coercive ... actions,” Biden said, charging that they “threaten regional peace and stability.”

Li Keqiang told the summit, which brought together leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with regional partners, that upholding peace, stability, freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea was in everyone’s interest. “The South China Sea is our common home,” he said.