“Tell us what we are going to get out of this,” said James Zimmerman, a lawyer in Beijing who is a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, referring to the West. “It’s a nonstarter if it’s all about bringing Chinese goods to Europe, or if it’s all one way.”

A top official in the Trump administration, Matthew Pottinger, the senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, said at Sunday’s conference that China should provide transparency in the bidding for contracts related to the initiative, to give a better chance to companies that aren’t state-owned.

China’s industrial overcapacity is a big motivator behind the plan. China can make nearly 1.1 billion tons of steel a year, as much as the rest of the world put together, but has domestic demand for only about 800 million tons. The initiative might absorb only about 30 million tons a year, according to a recent study by the European Union Chamber of Commerce.

Some American companies are taking steps to improve their chances — but that sometimes means manufacturing more in China, not the United States. Ms. Duan said G.E. had focused on ways to produce goods in China to meet the country’s requirements that some of the work be done locally. Honeywell said in a statement that it had also been looking for ways to produce more goods in China for the program.

“When the roads are built, when the ports are built, when the power plants are built, I think the other opportunities will come,” Ms. Duan said.

