Another case of injustice...

Our government has started a huge inspection operation aiming shops and restaurants owned by Chinese. That is fair; as if they want to do business in a country they should obey the laws of that country. However the truth is that this operation only happened due to pressure from Portuguese retailers and restaurants and here comes the unfairness: the same people who in most cases don't obey Portuguese laws!

In fact if our government went and check the Portuguese shops and restaurants that are next to the Chinese ones it would receive even more money in fines and I can say that hardly any restaurant in the country would remain open. Laws don't only apply to foreigners; it's only fair that Portuguese should also obey them. Closing down foreign businesses because they do the same thing as Portuguese owners isn't fair, it's highly disgusting in a country that should be tolerant. It seems that Portuguese have forgotten quite fast that they also had to leave Portugal looking for a better life for those that they loved.

I know Chinese constitute a threat too many Portuguese businesses, but Portuguese have also done nothing to prepare themselves. China has a competitive advantage in cheap labor, something that used to be a competitive advantage of Portugal, but it was obvious it would never be sustainable in the long term and what did Portuguese do? They bought luxurious cars and houses with the money they received from EU instead of investing in the modernization of their businesses and then buy the cars and houses with the profits they would eventually receive.

The solution is not to close Chinese businesses in our country based on the fact that they don't obey our law, as I can tell you loads of places where Portuguese sell counteract products and have cockroaches in their restaurants (at the very least), so law should be fair and close down all of those who don't obey Portuguese laws: including Portuguese owned businesses.
What I think that the world should do is take the advantage of the fact that Chinese want to get into the world trade (and benefit from it) and pressure it to finish with the violation of Human Rights in their country, not only of civilians but also of the conditions in which its population has to work (long hours for hardly any money or none at all), as well as implementing environmental friendly policies. This would of course mean work better paid for Chinese and less emigration as well as less competitive prices in the world market and more fairness in the world trade (the same applies to protectionist policies of the richest countries which only hurt poor countries, such as Latin and African ones).