BEIJING - The United States seeks to revamp its Cold War-era export control system, which, if effectively implemented, may allow more hi-tech products into China, said analysts.

"America's decades-old, bureaucratically labyrinthine system does not serve our 21st-century security needs or our economic interests," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an address before members of Business Executives for National Security, a non-partisan organization of business leaders, in Washington on Tuesday.

The proposal is focused on dual-use technologies, and items like computers and helicopter spare parts that are sold commercially for civilian use but which can also be used for military purposes.