HONG KONG — With some investors in its bonds running for the exits and foreign banks increasingly skeptical about its prospects, HNA Group tried this week to reassure markets that it has access to the money it needs.

At the same time, HNA, a vast but troubled Chinese conglomerate, is continuing the drive that helped cause its difficulties in the first place: completing billions of dollars in foreign deals.

The competing efforts by a company that has symbolized China’s growing wealth and global ambitions are a problem for the country’s leaders. They want to end wasteful overseas spending by debt-laden Chinese companies, which in the case of HNA and some others have drawn growing regulatory scrutiny in the United States and Europe.

China has yet to let one of its big conglomerates fail, and HNA is unlikely to be an exception. But it is testing how effectively China can curb such behavior, and how the country may deal with some companies that have gone too far.