If you go to Douyin's search page https://www.douyin.com/search/ https://www.douyin.com/search/ and focus the search bar, it'll show two sets of recommendations

If you go to Douyin's search page https://www.douyin.com/search/ https://www.douyin.com/search/ and focus the search bar, it'll show two sets of recommendations. The first is "for you" and, if they don't have a profile on you, likely a reflection of the most popular content. The second is a ranking of "hot topics", where Xi Jinping gets a dedicated top spot above number 1. Obviously that's because he'd only rarely rank near the top organically. But even with that extra promotion, most people will simply ignore it, so it's more of a fig leaf to keep the government content while users keep watching basically the same stuff as anywhere else.