This article examines and compares the hotly debated issue of national identity in the Taiwanese and English citizenship curricula and investigates the extent to which schoolteachers' perceptions fall in line with the written curriculum. The author describes the background to the evolution of national identity in each country. Following this preliminary understanding, the theory of civic-ethnic nationalism is used as the criterion to examine the nature of nationalism underlying the curriculum. The Taiwanese citizenship curriculum with its 60-year long history has transformed from being a tool for the promotion of an "imagined" Chinese national identity to a more Taiwan-oriented programme. With fewer disagreements, "British-ness", as a consensual identity constructed from a civic construct, creates an inclusive umbrella to accommodate citizens with different ethnic, cultural, and religious identities. However, English citizenship education teachers question whether it has a robust-enough and deep-enough magnet to engage every citizen with varying backgrounds and further enhance social consolidation. On the other hand, this umbrella-type national identity seems to provide a valid solution for the Taiwanese citizenship curriculum designers to heal the long-lasting tensions caused by the "Taiwanese-Chinese identity" divide. On closer examination, the Taiwanese curriculum chooses to sidestep this contentious issue and is therefore strongly criticised by the school teachers interviewed here. This research attempts to demonstrate the strengths and limitations of each curriculum's discourses of national identity and suggest what each may learn from each other.