You're right on the money about how it's not about intelligence but independence, self reliance, personal drive, ingenuity, etc.
That's what they're trying to stamp out.

On average, South East Asians have demonstrably higher IQs than whites.
That's a consistently reproducible result of intelligence testing.

But just they're not being targeted in the way that western culture is for the simple reason that intelligence isn't the threat.
It's the decidedly western values of individualism are the threat.