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

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 first-ever big takeover battle by a Chinese company for a U.S. corporation. It may also 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 after Unocal agreed to be sold to Chevron, an American oil giant, for $16.4 billion, is expected to trigger a potentially 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 Haier 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 Dell and Hewlett-Packard.