To be fair, Andrew Jones had sources in the 2020-2022 period which prompted him to quote a CZ-9 first flight of around 2033, so a 2032-2035 estimate would be consistent with that. I think the 2030 date is an optimistic (overly optimistic?) estimate based on best-case scenarios; perhaps circles within CASC are using an early deadline to create a sense of urgency whthin the development teams, like what Jared Issacman is trying to do for the Artemis program. When aggressive plans meet reality, delays may be the result; this has occurred for both Artemis and the Starship-superheavy programs (we'll see about CZ-9). Always good to temper optimism with caution.
(Addendum: the thought has occurred to me that there may be a possibility that the CZ-9 program may pursue a more aggressive development-through-testing process akin to that of Starship, so that "first-flight" may not necessarily come with an expectation of a perfect full-stack orbital flight. CASC seems to be moving away from the traditional conservative development process [necessitated by prior tech-backwardness] as seen in the rather aggresive February Max-Q plus first stage verification/controlled-landing test of the Mengzhou + CZ-10 test stage sub-orbital launch. If this is indeed the case then an earlier first-flight date is not out of the question.)
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