A Yue Minjun painting on China's Tiananmen Square crackdown and a 101-carat diamond are among the top lots of Christie's International's spring auction in Hong Kong, starting tomorrow, which may tally HK$1.7 billion ($218 million).Yue's 1993 "Gweong Gweong"may set an artist auction record of HK$55 million tomorrow at Christie's first evening sale of Asian art, the London-based company said. On May 28, the near- flawless diamond may fetch more than $8 million. About 2,400 gems, antiques and pictures go under the hammer in the six-day auction.Record prices paid for Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud works in New York earlier this month may fuel interest among buyers of contemporary art, seeking their Asian equivalent. A rebound in Asian stock markets in the past month will also encourage auction purchases, art dealers said."Things are looking up", said Tian Kai, a Beijing-based dealer. "We sense stronger buying interest and closer scrutiny of Asian contemporary art, especially works by Chinese artists like Zhang Xiaogang, Liu Xiaodong, Xu Bing and Zhang Huan."Buyers in the Greater China region -- China, Hong Kong and Taiwan -- accounted for 60 percent of purchases at Christie's Hong Kong sale in November, compared with 9 percent from Europe and 7 percent in the Americas.Chinese contemporary-art prices have more than tripled in five years, the fastest increase in Asia. Still, the record for the category -- $9.5 million for a set of Cai Guoqiang gunpowder- on-paper works -- is a fraction of the price paid for Western counterparts, suggesting there's room for more gains, Tian said.　Bacon RecordBacon's "Triptych, 1976" fetched $86.3 million this month, a record for contemporary art sold at auction."Gweong Gweong",which sold for HK$4.9 million just three years ago, shows Yue's signature laughing men dropping like bombs from jets onto a uniformed crowd in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.Other star lots at Christie's include Hisashi Tenmyouya's "RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version,'' which shows the Japanese artist's blend of realism and animated images; and South Korean Hong Kyong Tack's "Library II.'' Zeng Fanzhi's "Mask Series 1996 No. 6,'' showing eight figures wearing grinning masks and the telltale red scarf of China's Red Guards, may fetch as much as HK$25 million, the auction house estimates.Paintings by deceased Chinese masters such as Zhang Daqian and Fu Baoshi are also among the highlights. Zhang's "Retreat in the Summer Mountain'' may fetch as much as HK$4 million and Fu's "Traveling Amid the Mountain'' may sell for HK$2 million, according to Christie's. The auction house is also offering 15 clocks from 18th-century Chinese imperial courts from Japan's Nezu Museum, estimated at HK$5 million."Price isn't an issue for the very wealthy,'' said John Berwald, a dealer and adviser for U.S. art-investment fund Xiling Group, who's flying to Hong Kong from London for the auction. "We don't know how much they are willing to pay for what they want.''Earthquake DamageStill, some buyers may be put off making extravagant purchases after the deadly Sichuan earthquake on May 12 that killed at least 41,000 people and left hundreds of thousands others without homes, relations and livelihoods, said collector Cai Mingchao."The quake shows how ephemeral and fragile life is and gives perspective to what's important in life,'' said Cai, based in China's southern province of Fujian, who paid a record HK$117 million for a Ming Dynasty Buddha in October 2006. "That mind-set isn't conducive to material-focused activities like art auctions.''Christie's said it expects the diamond, the size of a quail's egg, to draw interest. The colorless diamond is only the fourth weighing more than 100 carats to be offered at auction, Francois Curiel, the company's global head of jewelry, said in February. The last three were sold in Geneva, he said.The record for a gemstone sold at auction is $16.5 million with fees, paid for a 100.1-carat "Star of the Season'' pear- shaped colorless diamond at Sotheby's, Geneva in May 1995. A carat is one-fifth of a gram.Hong Kong is Christie's third-biggest auction market after New York and London. Christie's and rival Sotheby's hold biannual sales in the city and the results serve as industry bellwethers.