DAMASCUS: Syria’s new President Ahmed Al-Sharaa met China’s ambassador to Damascus in the first public engagement between the two countries since the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December, Syrian state media said on Friday. China, which backed Assad, saw its embassy in Damascus looted after his fall, and Syria’s new Islamist rulers have installed some foreign fighters including Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in China that Western rights groups say has been persecuted by Beijing, into the Syrian armed forces. Beijing has denied accusations of abuses against Uyghurs.