Spanky is well-placed to liberate Chinatown, because as you can see, much of your work here involves the two gangs which populate the area. Much like GTA, each gang in the game is racially segregated and color coded, with the 3rd Street Killas apparently all being huge Chicago Bulls fans, because, you know, they're the black gang.
But wait a second, weren't they trying to join forces with the Killaz just a few missions ago? Oh, never mind.
It's hardly a class-concious solution to gang violence, but it's a given that a game like this requires you to turn your brain off a little, and there are still good times to be had, like an escort mission where you're tasked with rescuing a high-ranking Corporation Enforcer accused of embezzlement, with stealing from the rich being the ultimate crime in the corporate world, hence Bernie Madoff's 150 year sentence. The upside is the Sgt. brings his shotgun and isn't afraid to use it.
In return, his intel helps set up a mission where you assassinate a European banker willing to help the Corporation expand overseas, so apparently they're limited to North America, which matches the old ATO moniker.
In one set of missions Freedom's hacker slash phone phreaker asks you to steal a totally 2035-looking computer about to be released to prove that the Corporation are planting spyware in all consumer PCs to destroy digital privacy. I dunno, that just seems too unrealistic to me...
Later on, a traitor sells out the location of Washington's safehouse, and we have to rescue him with a teargas grenade launcher, a weapon which only exists in this mission, but presumably was intended to feature more in the original ATO riots plan for the game.
In the overarching plot of Chinatown, the Josef Mengele inspired corporation doctors are at it again, and you uncover a plot by the sinister Dr. Hunter to implant nanotech chips into the population, similar to the trackers used by the corporation forces but with a psychoactive mind control element. In practice, this is an excuse for a riot section where everyone on the street is potentially trying to kill you, until you blow up the control unit hidden in the Temple.
The war continues to escalate as Freak takes on East Side, and this stage has you coming up against the Corporation's elite troops as well as the skinheads. As in Seattle, the continued rioting leads to the deployment of the military, though clearly the game does not represent reality. During real world civil disobedience, at least in the first world, the deployment of the army ironically usually leads to a diffusion of tensions and violence. Part of being a soldier is of course to learn to kill, and to dehumanise the enemy, but in practice this essentially means foreigners.
This contrasts with the 'canteen culture' of the police, who are trained both formally and socially to treat the general public as the enemy, especially in low income neighbourhoods. As a matter of course, police officers learn that their job is to control the population, with minimal consequences for excessive force, and they are often both poorly trained and over-equipped. Perhaps as a consequence of the Kent State massacre of 1970, the modern national guard is by contrast expected to show discipline and restraint, and clearly do not find violence against their countrymen to be as easy. In addition, occupied and embattled communities often see the military as a more neutral force than the hated local law enforcement.