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It's not the particular coastline, but the ability to deny support from American carrier groups. Sailing between the continent and the island is a flex, but it's ultimately not where the carrier groups that could shut down an invasion would be.
"Sailing between the continent and the island" is how they would land forces. It is possible for the Chinese Navy to be able to do so while being unable to prevent the US from supplying Taiwan via the east side of the island. Not likely, I'll admit, most likely the US denies them the strait. It is also possible they could deny the US ability to supply the island while also being denied the strait, though I suspect this situation would not last long.
Isn’t the western coast of Taiwan famously difficult to land troops on?
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I think I may not have been clear / been on a tangential point. As a clarification of my previous point, not a rebuttal to this point:
My intended point was that if the Chinese cannot prevent the American carriers from operating on the east side of the coast, or the south, or the north, they do not control the western Straight, because the carriers are still able to do their job of launching planes to target invasion vessels with anti-ship missiles. My assessment is that the Chinese generally believe preventing this is a requirement to go ahead with the invasion in any sort of enduring scenario (ie. anything other than an immediate 'run to the ports and rush over' attempt at a fait accompli). This is why the Chinese anti-access / area-denial weapons, such as the vaunted anti-carrier ballistic missile or threats to guam, are so much further outside the range of the straight itself: they need to be to keep the carriers from operating off the east coast of Taiwan, or long-range bombers from taking off in range to cause unacceptable amounts of trouble.
If the Carrier groups are operating off the east, then these systems have already failed. If these systems have failed, the Chinese won't be attempting to launch more landing craft. If the systems succeeded, then the carriers are not there, and the ability to execute the blockade is maintained. Thus, the general importance is on the ability to maintain the blockade, as a failure to be able to do so means that carrier groups are active in the immediate area, which pre-empts the landing flotilla.
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