Some more extended commentary regarding Taiwanese conscription...
The draft is interesting in that it helps to prevent the army from easily becoming a political force, as recruits are taken from all over the country and society. It's a fairly special scenario generally limited to countries emerging from states that have long been under one-party authoritarian rule. This appears to be more of a problem of the KMT possibly misusing the military, as they have the potential ties to do so from their decades in power, while the DPP currently doesn't.
That said, switching away from conscription into a professional army in of itself isn't the problem. It's the attempt to do too much at once. The idea of the all-volunteer army isn't the result of "reduced tensions", or an attempt by the KMT to shore up support, as these ideas were tossed around during former President Chen's first term as well.
As weapon systems become increasingly difficult to operate, the period of training that conscript receive seems redundant, as it is simply too short. Thus, attracting motivated career soldiers is not a bad idea, assuming that there is enough demand for the job, which is another issue altogether. Given the worsening economy, it seems relatively plausible.
The biggest problem with the plan at this time though is that the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party is trying to simultaneously cut the military budget - the overall defense budget for 2009 is $10.17 billion, which is actually $301.4 million lower than the 2008 level. Professional armies aren't cheap. Without an increase in defense spending or special budget allocations, the creation of a full volunteer military by 2014 is simply impossible, from a financial standpoint. Thus far the government has not made any mentions regarding increased spending. Perhaps equally important is the fact that soldiers' salaries are uncompetitive - the military must attract talent in large enough a quantity to meet its requirements. Again, this takes funding that the KMT appears to be politically unwilling to push through.
Try to do two things at the same time half-heartedly and you'll end up failing both...