HONG KONG—The U.S. has launched a new strategy aimed at ramping up investment in Asia to vie with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s overseas infrastructure-building spree, as Beijing grapples with setbacks to its sprawling program.
But China has a head start—and a state-led model that makes it easier to finance and build on a large scale. Mr. Xi’s Belt and Road initiative has offered hundreds of billions of dollars for railways, bridges and ports in dozens of countries, expanding its strategic influence along the way.