David Wang

Who was David Wang?

David Neng Hwan Wang, was a Chinese-Australian businessman and the first Chinese-Australian elected to the Melbourne City Council.

Wang was born in Haimen county, Jiangsu province, China, the son of a prosperous peasant farmer, and studied radio communications in Shanghai before entering the military academy in Chongqing, in 1939. Promoted lieutenant in 1941, he served in the intelligence section of the general headquarters. Following the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, he was sent to Australia as a captain with the Chinese military mission.

In Melbourne in 1942 he met Mabel Chen, an Australian-born Chinese, who chose the English name David for him. In 1947 they were married in Singapore, where he opened a business importing woollen goods from Australia. These connections to Australia enabled him to gain a seven-year Australian business residence permit in 1948, despite the then-official White Australia Policy, which prevented Asian immigration. The permit was issued by the Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, who became a close friend of the Wang family, despite his lifelong support for White Australia. He opened his furniture business in Little Bourke Street in 1950.