Experts say Chinese collectors may emerge as the latest power players to bid up Western icons they once ignored. Until recently, Asians have fixated on collecting their own cultural heritage. Now, with a new season of major Impressionist and Modern art auctions just begun, an influx of collectors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are branching out to seek artists from the 20th century Western canon, such as Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Edgar Degas.