Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao are five high-performing economies with high percentage of Chinese population in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 Study. The five economies are found to have a very high share of academically resilient students in their 15-year-old populations amongst the 65 participating economies. Protective factors of academic resilience are sought from a comparative education perspective. Two PISA student engagement and attribution variables are examined to see whether they are behavioral and cognitive protective factors promoting academic resilience of students from families of low home socio-economic status. This study establishes that the joint effects of the student engagement and internal attribution are able to explain academic resilience of socioeconomically disadvantaged students of the five high-performing ethnic Chinese economies. Discussion of findings are made with reference to the Confucian-heritage values deemed applicable to the ethnic Chinese societies.