‘Let’s continue to build ... together’

State dinner marks 50th anniversary of United States, Singapore relations

President Barack Obama and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong toast each other Tuesday during a state dinner. (Associated Press)

President Barack Obama and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stand and watch a state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Barack Obama listens as Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speak during a state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016. Watching are, back left to right, Ho Ching, wife of prime minister of Singapore, first lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Jill Biden and her husband Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Barack Obama, left, and Ho Ching, the wife of Singapore's Prime Minister, laugh at a joke told by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's toast of the president during a state dinner, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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By Kevin Freking (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations with Singapore Tuesday with a state dinner for a leader Obama praised as respected around the world and a trusted partner.

Obama reserved the 12th state dinner of his presidency to honor Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his wife, Ho Ching. Obama said the nation’s ties go back nearly two centuries when Singapore was still a colony, and the U.S. had recently emerged as an independent nation. He said the alliance is about more than shared strategic interests in a rising Asia Pacific.

“We’re bound together by history, by family and by friendship,” Obama said.

The state dinner included a mix of Washington officials and celebrities. Among those at the head table with the Obamas and Lees were actors Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, author Amy Tan, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and her husband, retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, Sam’s Club President and CEO Rosalind Brewer, and Caterpillar Inc. chairman and CEO Douglas Oberhelman.

The allies share close economic and security ties, with more than 3,500 U.S. companies having a presence in Singapore. Singapore was the first Southeast Asian country to join in the fight against the Islamic State group. Both countries also signed onto last year’s Paris climate agreement.

“Let’s continue to build something special together,” Obama said during his toast to the Lees.

Earlier, the two leaders held a joint news conference in which Lee ensured Singapore would continue to work closely with the United States regardless of who wins this year’s tumultuous presidential election. After elections, “positions are rethought, strategies are nuanced and a certain balance is kept in the direction of the ship of state. It doesn’t turn completely upside down,” Lee observed. “The Americans take pride in having a system with checks and balances so that it is not so easy to do things, but it is not so easy to completely mess things up,” Lee said, prompting reporters to laugh and Obama to smile. “And we admire that and sometimes we depend upon that.”

The last state dinner at the White House for Singapore was in 1985, during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, for Lee’s late father, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.