In view of an improvement of the seismic performance of structural short columns, a new structural form of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) - ordinary concrete (NC) composite columns has thus been proposed, with a pseudo-static test analysis to be carried out by using ABAQUS finite element software, followed by a study on the hysteretic performance, ductility, energy dissipation capacity and stiffness degradation of UHPC-NC composite columns under a low cyclic reciprocating variable displacement load with an axial compression ratio of 0.2, as well as a comparison with that of ordinary concrete columns. The results show that the ductility and energy dissipation performance of UHPC-NC composite columns are greatly improved compared with that of ordinary concrete columns. The ductility coefficient of ZH-4 model of UHPC-NC composite columns reaches 4.0, which is about 54% higher than the maximum ductility coefficient of 2.6 of ordinary concrete columns; in terms of stiffness degradation, UHPC-NC composite columns are characterized with a slower rate of stiffness degradation than ordinary concrete columns when loaded in the middle and late period, with ZH-4 model exhibiting the best performance of stiffness degradation.