The Economist point that no-one has made a opposed landing since Korea is a good one - the nearest thing would be the Falklands where the opposition turned up a few critical hours later and nearly wrecked the party even so.
When you think of the planning that went into D-Day for example... and that was the accumulation of 2 years smaller invasions - some of which went well (Sicily, Algeria) and those that didn't (Dieppe, Salerno). The PLA would be really pushing their luck to try a one-off invasion without a "practice" first to test kit, people and doctrine.
Perhaps once they start gobbling up the small Taiwanese held islands close to the mainland will be the time to start to worry about a cross- straight operation