Note #1:

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Arguably, a "Territory, Category III" could be listed. This would be "Foreign Territory leased by the USA," which primarily would include US military bases located in foreign countries. However, a discussion of this aspect is not directly related to the focus of the twdefense.info website, which concentrates more closely on legal and historical comparisons between Cuba, the Ryukyu island group, and Taiwan.

Note #2:

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An examination of the historical and legal record shows that the United States never regarded Cuba as coming under the US Constitution's territorial clause (Article IV, Sec. 3, cl. 2), which reads as follows:

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; . . . .

Note #3:

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Both CATEGORY I and CATEGORY II US Overseas Territory would qualify as "US Insular Areas." The definition of "insular" is -- (a) of or relating to an island or islands, (b) dwelling or situated on an island.

• Foreign island territory held by US military forces under belligerent occupation (without any territorial cession) may be said to be under the administrative control of the USA, but with no legal detachment from its original "mother country" would not be subject to US insular law  and hence is not considered here.
• After the Spanish American War, the term "insular" signified that the newly acquired overseas areas were islands administered by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs.

At present, the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) is a unit of the United States Department of the Interior that oversees federal administration of several United States insular areas, all of which now have their own "civil government." It is the successor to the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs, which administered certain territories from 1902 to 1939, and the Office of Territorial Affairs (formerly the Division of Territories and Island Possessions and then the Office of Territories) in the Interior Department, which was responsible for certain territories from the 1930s to the 1990s.

Note #4:

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Since 1901, the US Supreme Court has issued numerous rulings which have held that under the US Constitution, inhabitants of overseas territories or other geographic areas (i.e. US Territory CATEGORY I and US Territory CATEGORY II, as delineated above) are entitled to enjoy "fundamental" constitutional rights, -- which are defined as "inherent principles which are the basis of all free government."

Note #5:

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Examples of CATEGORY I territories are American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin islands, and Puerto Rico.

Note #6:

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Examples of CATEGORY II territories would be Cuba in the period of April 11, 1899 to May 20, 1902; the Ryukyu island group in the period of April 28, 1952 to May 15, 1972. Significantly, Taiwan in the period of April 28, 1952 to the present also fits this CATEGORY II qualifying criteria.

The concept of "territory held in trust" after military conquest and after the peace treaty has come into force is fully discussed in this website's overview of Neely v. Henkel, 180 U.S. 109 (1901)

Note #7:

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Inhabitants of the CATEGORY I territories of American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin islands are currently classified as "US nationals non-citizens." Inhabitants of Puerto Rico were collectively naturalized as US citizens in March 1917, and the people of Guam were collectively naturalized as US citizens in August 1950.

Note #8:

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Although issuance was limited, inhabitants of the CATEGORY II territories of Cuba and the Ryukyu island group, during the periods indicated, held identity documents issued by the US military authorities. These inhabitants were often referred to by the generic terminology of "citizens of the islands", or simply "island citizens." In regard to Taiwan --

• Significantly, there is no wording in the post-WWII San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT), the One China Policy, the Three Joint USA - PRC Communiques, the Taiwan Relations Act, or the Six Assurances which can serve as the legal basis for a government-like entity calling itself the "Republic of China" to issue identity documents to inhabitants of the Taiwan area.
• With recognition of this fact, some Taiwanese activist groups have argued that based on the SFPT, it is the United States which should issue identity documents to the inhabitants of Taiwan. US government officials have never responded to Petitions submitted to the US Dept. of State, Dept. of Defense, or the White House on this subject.
• Alternatively, some pro-China supporters have energetically claimed that Article 10 of the Treaty of Taipei fully recognized the inhabitants of Taiwan as having ROC nationality. However, examination of the Records of the Japanese Diet shows that this is not true, see -- Article 10, Treaty of Taipei.

Note #9:

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Flag: After the SFPT came into force in late April 1952, US Congress members recognized that the treaty only stipulated that Japan renounced her sovereignty over Taiwan, but no "receiving country" was specified. Some journalists then asked why the Chinese flag was flying, and inquired if perhaps the US flag should be flying.

The response received was: "Unless the island of Formosa is American property or territory, it is none of the US Congress business nor within the legislative competence of the US Congress to determine what flag shall fly over the island . . . . . "

However, in relation to the Chart #1 US Overseas Territory given above, such a statement only takes into account Category I territory. There is still a Category II.

As explained in Note #6:, above, examples of CATEGORY II territories would be Cuba in the period of April 11, 1899 to May 20, 1902; the Ryukyu island group in the period of April 28, 1952 to May 15, 1972. During these periods both Cuba and the Ryukyu island group had a US military governor, and the US flag was flying.

It may be worthy of mention that Taiwan, in the period of April 28, 1952 to the present, also fits this CATEGORY II qualifying criteria. Moreover, no content of the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint USA-PRC Communiques, the One China Policy, the Six Assurances, or the Senate-ratified SFPT can be found to support the contention that the ROC flag should be flying over Taiwan. This is all the more true when we consider that the announcement of "Taiwan Retrocession Day" by ROC military commanders on Oct. 25, 1945, was a gross violation of the laws of war, and the SFPT did not award (give, transfer, assign, cede) the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan to China.

For more analysis of this flag aspect, see -- What Flag Should be Raised?

For more analysis of Taiwan status under US jurisdiction, see -- US overseas quasi trusteeships.

Note #10:

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Terminology Notes: After the Spanish American War, US jurists had trouble deciding whether the United States newly acquired overseas possessions were domestic territory or foreign territory, with the result that such terminology as "foreign in a domestic sense" began to be used.

The expressions "domestic country" and "island citizen" come from the ruling in Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U.S. 1 (1904).

A study of the territorial cessions after the Mexican American and the Spanish American War confirms that the military government of the principal occupying power does not end with the coming into force of the peace treaty, but continues until legally supplanted.

After the end of the first stage of military occupation (i.e. "belligerent occupation") but before the end of the military government of the (principal) occupying power, Cuba was a self-governing dominion held under United States Military Government which was given "trust territory" characteristics by the USA.

In regard to Taiwan, there is a similar situation, with the creation self-governing dominion by the San Francisco Peace Treaty cession. Indeed, under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States government treats Taiwan as a "sub-sovereign foreign-state equivalent."

Taiwan was never under any UN Trusteeship arrangement, and must currently be viewed as under an interim status of post USA "belligerent occupation," which is more commonly called "friendly occupation," or the civil affairs administration of a military government.

Based on the comparisons between the situations of Cuba after the coming into force of the Spanish American Peace Treaty in 1899, and Taiwan after the coming into force of the SFPT in 1952, it can be seen that the USA is legally holding the sovereignty of Taiwan cession while the ROC exercises the effective territorial control as the subordinate military governors.