This paper tries to explain why the political conflicts surrounding the nation identity issue in Taiwan during the 1990s are still considered to be ethnically related. I argue that the pattern of party support among difference ethnic groups in Taiwan has a strong ethnic flavor because party support is connected to past ethnic politics. Futhermore, I propose that the confrontations among different nationalist camps along the party line have aggravated ethnic conflict because various nationalist ideologies in Taiwan are highly ethnically-based and have differential oppressing effects among ethnic groups. As a result, nationalist conflicts in contemporary Taiwan have strong ethnic implications and consequences. To substantiate my arguments, I examine the relationship among ethnic consciousness, nationalism, and party support by analyzing the 1994 "The Social Image Survey of Taiwan" data. The results show that: 1) ethnic consciousness remains an important factor behind the Taiwanese-minnans' support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), despite its content becoming more cultural/social in nature at the expense of political/economic goals; 2) most Mainlanders still do not support the DPP nor "Taiwanese Independence"; 3) Mainlanders who shift their support from the kuomintang (KMT) to the New Party (NP) are mainly those who do not have to rely on the KMT for living arrangements or care.