With the government strapped for cash, retired servicemen who are living in China on public money have become a new flashpoint for partisan strife.
TSU lawmakers have vowed to introduce a bill to deny the group, numbering about 6,000, a monthly stipend of NT$13,100.
Calling the move inhuman, the PFP has said it will fight to quash the motion, while the KMT has urged its proponents to think twice, fearing that the planned measure will intensify ethnic tensions.
TSU lawmaker Ho Min-hao (何敏豪) said he found it nonsensical for the government to provide financial support for veterans who have made China their permanent residence.
He equated the spending to "financing the Chinese communists" because the money is used in a country whose government has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan by force, if necessary.
Currently, some 13,000 retired servicemen, who fled to Taiwan with the KMT government at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, are qualified to collect the veterans' stipend. A total of 5,918 of them have chosen to return to China, attracted by the lower cost of living, according to the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen.
"Known for their constant criticism of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and the incumbent DPP government, they do not deserve the stipend," Ho argued.
The lawmaker said his caucus is drafting a bill intended to disqualify veterans who move back to China from receiving the stipend.
"If adopted, the measure would save the government close to NT$1 billion in annual spending," Ho said, adding that the TSU would seek to freeze the budget in question.
A Cabinet proposal would limit the exclusion to those who move across the Strait without official permission.
PFP legislative leader Shen Chih-hwei (沈智慧), however, said it is cruel to withhold the stipend from these veterans, many of them senile and without kin in Taiwan.
During the 1940s and 1950s, retired soldiers lived on a quarterly wage of between NT$700 and NT$800. In addition they received a quilt, a military outfit and a pair of boots.
The government, under former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), installed the veteran's stipend for retired soldiers aged 61 and older to ease their economic plight. The money may be collected in one payment or on a monthly basis.
"After devoting their youth to Taiwan, they have every right to decide when and where they would like to spend their stipend," Shen said. "The PFP will do all it can to block the TSU proposal."
The monthly stipend of NT$13,100 is considerably higher than the income of a retired Chinese colonel, for example, who can collect only NT$8,200 a month.
In 1995, then-president Lee agreed to legal revisions allowing those retired soldiers to relocate to China on humanitarian grounds.
KMT legislative leader Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) warned the TSU to think twice before seeking to deprive veterans of their stipends, saying the move is bound to sharpen ethnic divisions.
"Let's not wipe out their past contribution to Taiwan's security altogether," he pleaded.
Official statistics show that the exodus of retired soldiers helps save the government NT$300 million a year in national health insurance premiums and other payments.
Since 1995, 287 of the emigrants have returned to Taiwan, citing better hygiene, among other reasons.
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