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China’s economy last quarter grew at the slowest rate in three years, reflecting a broader slump that the country’s leaders signaled earlier this year when they set the lowest growth target in more than three decades.

On Wednesday, that National Bureau of Statistics said that the economy expanded by 4.3 percent in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, down from a 5 percent pace in the first quarter and short of economists’ expectations.

Although China’s factories are churning out chips and electric cars to supply a global boom in artificial intelligence and energy-saving products, many Chinese people are feeling squeezed at home.

A long-running property crisis has no end in sight, with steep declines in construction dragging down economic growth. Jobs outside of factories are hard to come by, and paychecks are not growing. Retail sales of consumer goods have been choppy. They fell in May, for the first time since the end of Covid-19 lockdowns in late 2022, before recovering somewhat in June.

That is in stark contrast to China’s relentless strength in manufacturing and trade, with a government report released on Tuesday showing China’s exports surging by 27 percent in June compared with a year earlier, driven by shipments of chips, batteries and cars. China’s trade surplus in June, at more than $125 billion, was second largest on record.

In other words, China’s mighty export machine is masking weaknesses elsewhere.

“You get this A.I. boom, which is a global thing, and China is part of the leading nations on the frontier,” said Yu Song, the chief China economist at UBS Securities. “Without this, China’s economy would be in a much worse state.”

When measured on a quarter-to-quarter basis, China’s economy expanded by only 0.9 percent in the second quarter. When projected out for a year, the second-quarter data implies that the economy was growing at an annual rate of 3.6 percent, sharply down from a pace of more than 6 percent in the first quarter.

The second-quarter annualized rate also missed official targets. Shortcomings in China’s economic growth drivers prompted the ruling Communist Party earlier this year to set the lowest annual growth target in decades, with a goal of between 4.5 percent and 5 percent this year.

Stepping back to consider the trends in the first half of the year, economists say that China’s manufacturing and export prowess, however robust, cannot carry growth on its own.

Industrial production rose by 5.4 percent in the first six months of the year, versus the same period last year. High-tech manufacturing rose by more than 13 percent over that period. But fixed asset investment — which includes infrastructure, property construction and manufacturing — fell by 5.7 percent. Real estate development dropped 18 percent.

The value of China’s exports surged by more than 20 percent in the first half. But consumer spending, which a Moody’s Analytics report said “remains the economy’s weakest link,” faltered. Retail sales of consumer goods increased by 1.3 percent over the first half of the year.

The effects of the war in Iran have pinched Chinese households, with rising fuel prices prompting them to drive and fly less, at a time when many were already worried about the economy and choosing to save more.

China has softened the blow of rising fuel costs by controlling the price at the pump, but the cost of filling up for drivers is still double-digit percentages higher than a year ago.

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Shoppers at an electric car showroom in Shanghai. Chinese consumers have embraced a culture of thriftiness, as many are not feeling the benefits of economic growth. Credit…Qilai Shen for The New York Times

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