Why were government officials respected in Chinese society?

They were respected because of the institution of fear in society based on how they ran their government.

The Chinese scholar - official occupied a position at the top of the traditional hierarchical society, for he possessed prestige, wealth, and power. Because of the difficulty of mastering the classical Chinese writing style, only a tiny fraction of the population of China was fully literate, and government officials were selected from this small group of highly educated scholars.