They weren't though. Socratic method was a singular argument and should not be confused with the argument in Chinese culture. As a Chinese American I literally hear the Zhuang Zi type argument in lay discourse and I would argue its legacy has been a strain of antiintellectualism in secular Chinese culture, e.g. whenever people say books are not necessary or book knowledge is not "real life" knowledge is a sentiment you hear from older Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwan parents. It is very damaging and anti-intellectual. The Socratic idea is a very different argument because in Phaedrus the argument (as I recall from my undergrad critical theory class reading this text) is that through dialectic comes truth which is a discursive argument, not an argument that truth is learned from hands-on or religious experience.
It also coincides with the Taoist philosophy (and actually somewhat Buddhist) of learning through actions and not speech. The most famous (if I recall the story correctly) of the Buddha teaching his disciples by smiling and twirling around a flower.
Kind of fascinating that these faraway places kind of arrived at the same ideas. Independently or not I think nobody would know but it does not matter.