A paramilitary police officer wearing a protective facemasks to help stop the spread of a deadly SARS-like virus which originated in the central city of Wuhan, stand on guard in front of the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on January 28, 2020.

The U.S. on Wednesday condemned China's decision to revoke the press credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters based in Beijing.

"Mature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech."

"The United States hopes that the Chinese people will enjoy the same access to accurate information and freedom of speech that Americans enjoy," Pompeo said.

The reporters were expelled after outrage in China over a recent opinion piece printed in the Journal, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a news briefing earlier Wednesday.

"Chinese people do not welcome media that publish racially discriminatory and malicious slander on China," the spokesman said. "In light of this, China has decided to revoke the press cards of the three Wall Street Journal correspondents in Beijing starting today."

The spokesman identified the piece as a Feb. 3 opinion column by Walter Russell Mead, the headline of which criticized China as "the Real Sick Man of Asia."

The move marks the first time since the era of Mao Zedong that China has expelled multiple journalists from one international news organization simultaneously, according to the Journal.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.

William Lewis, CEO of Dow Jones, the Journal's publisher and a unit of News Corp., said in a statement that "we regret" the anger that Mead's headline stoked in China. "It was not our intention to cause offense with the headline on the piece," Lewis said. Mead is a Bard College professor and a scholar at the Hudson Institute.

But, he added, "today's decision to target our News department journalists greatly hinders" efforts to meaningfully cover the news from China.

"We respectfully request that China's Foreign Ministry reinstate the visas" for the three journalists, Lewis said.