"We hope that the United States can take measures to relax or lift its restrictions on high tech exports to China so as to address the trade imbalance in China-US trade," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

Jiang was responding to a Financial Times report that said Washington was planning to tighten controls on the export of high technology goods that could be used to help improve China's military capabilities.

The proposed new restrictions were presented to China's trade ministry on Friday last week and were expected to be published soon in the United States for public comment, the newspaper said.

"The restrictions reflect mounting concern among conservatives in the Pentagon and White House over China's growing military capability and spending," the newspaper said.

The United States introduced restrictions on the export to China of high technology items following the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy protests in 1989.

China has always opposed the restrictions and regularly cites them as a reason for its booming trade surplus with the United States which, according to Washington's figures, grew to a record 202 billion dollars last year.

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