In foreign languages, the Chinese term shidafu (士大夫) has been translated as follows: scholar-official, scholar-bureaucrat, literati and officialdom, which mean that shidafu is simultaneously a bureaucrat and scholar (literati). It is said that scholar-bureaucrats were “a brilliant symbolic combination of the highest cultural values and the highest social power”. After the gradual elimination of the influence of aristocratic politics, imperial China transitioned duly to bureaucratic politics (elite politics) dominated by scholar-bureaucrats. Although the dynastic rulers paid special attention to popular support and public opinion, it was fundamentally different from modern democratic politics. In the words of Wen Yanbo of the Song Dynasty, the emperor ruled the world with scholar-bureaucrats, not with the common people.