What countries are included in "Americas"? I speculate the Southern Hemisphere is the biggest driver in that category and is one of the places China is most actively engaging. Africa is another region, but lumped together with Europe. The chart, as is, doesn't have sufficient detail to parse out the effects of sanctions from the regions participating vs not.
I wonder if that is the point of the chart's design... WSJ?
2. "that it barely dropped after the sanctions" - good point.