BEIJING, July 30 — Workers at Wal-Mart Stores have formed their first trade union in China, after demands from the government that the company allow organized labor in its stores, according to reports in the official news media over the weekend.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has long sought to bar unions from its stores, particularly in the United States. But the government-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions has campaigned to set up branches in China, where Wal-Mart employs 30,000 people at 60 outlets.

Any new union in China is unlikely to resemble its counterparts in the West. Labor activists often accuse the tightly controlled All-China Federation of siding with management rather than workers. The union, founded in 1925 during the era of Chinese Nationalist rule, says on its Web site that it has 134 million members.

Harley Shaiken, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, said that China’s state-backed unions were known for supporting, rather than challenging, foreign corporations.