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.

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.

Biden last week said the United States, which is obliged by a 1979 law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, would come to Taiwan's defense if it was attacked by China. Those comments caused a stir because they appeared to depart from a long-held U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity" as to how Washington would respond to such a scenario.

The White House said Biden was not signaling a change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, and some analysts dismissed his comments as a gaffe.

Tensions between Taiwan and China have escalated in recent weeks as Beijing has staged repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait, the waterway separating the island and the mainland.