China on Wednesday said it would revoke the press credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters working in mainland China, in a significant escalation of Beijing’s pressure on the foreign news media.

At a daily news briefing on Wednesday, a spokesman for China’s ministry of foreign affairs said the credentials would be revoked in retaliation for a headline for an essay that ran in The Journal’s editorial pages earlier this month. The headline read, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.”

Chinese officials have “demanded that The Wall Street Journal recognise the seriousness of the error, openly and formally apologise, and investigate and punish those responsible, while retaining the need to take further measures against the newspaper,” Geng Shuang, the ministry spokesman, said in a transcript provided by the Chinese government.

“The Chinese people do not welcome media that publish racist statements and smear China with malicious attacks,” he added.

The Journal identified the reporters as Josh Chin, its deputy bureau chief in Beijing and an American national; Chao Deng, an American; and Philip Wen, an Australian national.

Like other media organisations, including The New York Times, The Journal runs its news and editorial departments as separate operations, meaning none of the newspaper’s reporters in China would have been involved in writing the essay’s headline.

The move comes just months after Chinese officials effectively expelled another Journal reporter, Chun Han Wong, from mainland China.