From what I gather, the point of a phd is to train researchers so they can become independent researchers i.e set their own 'big question' and understand method

From what I gather, the point of a phd is to train researchers so they can become independent researchers i.e set their own 'big question' and understand methodologies to solve it. This article states that the research direction in China is coming from external parties (I suppose commercial interests). So all thats happening really is that companies are finding ever cheaper sources of skilled labour to solve their current problems. Academic researcher ideally shouldn't be linked to a companies motivations... or at least not all of it.