[originaltext] An $18.5 billion bid for Unocal made Thursday by one of the l

An $18.5 billion bid for Unocal made Thursday by one of the largest state-controlled oil companies in China is the latest symbol of the country’ s growing economic clout and of the soaring ambitions of its corporate giants. The unsolicited bid by China National Offshore Oil Corp, or CNOOC, initiated the fast-ever big takeover battle by a Chinese company for a U.S. corporation. It also may be a watershed in Chinese corporate behavior and demonstrates the increasing influence of Wall Street’ s bare-knuckled hostile takeover tactics in Asia. CNOOC’ s bid, which comes two months alter Unocal agreed to be sold to Chevron, an American oil giant, for $16.4 billion, is expected to trigger a potent/ally costly bidding war over California-based Unocal, a large, independent oil company. Moreover, the bid is likely to provoke a fierce debate in Washington about U.S. trade policies with China and the role of the two governments in the growing trend of deal making between companies in both countries. A consortium of investors led by Haler Group, one of the biggest Chinese companies, made a bid this week to acquire Maytag, the American appliance giant, for $1.3 billion, surpassing an earlier bid made by a group of American investors. Last month, Lenovo Group, the largest computer maker in China, completed its $1.75 billion deal to acquire IBM’ s legendary personal computer business, creating the third-largest computer maker after Deli and Hewlett-Packard.