China said Wednesday that it revoked the press credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters based in Beijing in retaliation for a recent opinion column that ran in the publication. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said during an online press briefing that Beijing had made repeated requests for the Journal to issue a public apology and hold “the relevant people accountable.” Chinese officials deemed the article’s headline racist, according to Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times. The column, which was published in early February and covered the recent coronavirus outbreak and China’s economic strength, was titled “The Real Sick Man of Asia.” It was written by Walter Russell Mead, a professor at Bard College in New York. Shortly after the column’s publication, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunyin objected to the piece.