Perched deep within the Communist Party's propaganda machine, Li Datong manages to churn out challenging - sometimes scathing - social critiques that leave many officials blushing, cringing or seething over their breakfast. As the editor of Freezing Point, a hard-hitting supplement that comes out every Wednesday in China Youth Daily (owned by the Communist Youth League), he produces in-depth reports that often show the society with warts and all. For 10 years, he has managed to publish his reports without falling foul of the censor, playing a media version of Russian roulette. It involves guessing where the invisible limits on comment lie, and pushing them back whenever he senses an opportunity. He admits he has to pick his targets carefully. While writing about the nefarious practices of a county or city official might be fair game, provincial-level cadres and above are too hot for his team to handle. But the stories, often up to 10,000 words long, dissect many of the ills of modern China and are 'a recording for history', he says. Respect for the rule of law tends to be his central theme. 'The biggest issue China faces is the challenge to observe the constitution. The wording of it is very good, extremely specific, but in reality it's only a piece of paper,' he says. He recently pulled together a selection of his reports, added some personal commentary and released it in a book also entitled Freezing Point. The first run of 10,000 sold out in a couple of weeks. Although most of the material had already been published, the book still seemed to irk the publicity department: it ordered the Beijing News to pull a complimentary review a few hours before deadline, according to an editor there. But he book hasn't been banned. That Li still has a job at China Youth Daily is a surprise to some. Over the summer he went head to head with his bosses when they tried to introduce a bonus scheme for reporters, based on the levels of praise or criticism party chiefs heaped on their stories. Li lambasted the proposal in a long letter to his superiors, which was leaked and popped up on several websites. He said: 'If you insist on going forward, then it will be clear that the China Youth Daily will collapse within two to three years.' There was a nervous silence after the letter was released, and many expected Li would pay a dear price for his outspoken approach. But, in a matter of days, the management backed down and scrapped the plan. At age 52, the charismatic native of Sichuan province has been involved in his fair share of political wrangles. Former party leader Hu Yaobang was a family friend and a witness at his parents' wedding. His father's close association with Mr Hu was part of the reason the family was banished to Inner Mongolia for the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution. Li learned Mongolian, which helped him get his first job as a reporter with the China Youth Daily more than 26 years ago. By 1989, he was in Beijing leading a movement to liberalise the government's approach to the media and freedom of expression. After the Tiananmen crackdown, he was sent to the provinces again and was only allowed back to the capital in 1994, when he started up Freezing Point. Although Li has a cheery disposition and readily breaks into loud laughter, many aspects of China sadden him. His 22-year-old daughter has been living in the United States for the past few years, where he hopes she'll stay. 'China is full of crises,' he says. 'All across the country people from all walks of life are full of anger ... I don't want her to live here.' He plans to stick around himself, though, and to keep agitating for change from within. Peter Goff is a Beijing-based journalist