Russia and China are boosting bilateral cooperation on nuclear weapons strategies as they accused the United States of disrupting nonproliferation measures during a high-level meeting of the top five nuclear powers.

Representatives of the so-called "Nuclear Five" met Wednesday in Beijing, at a time of heightened tensions between the Eastern and Western permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The grouping included China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), a landmark document that sought to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction during a decades-long arms race between Washington and Moscow.

As the White House threatened to scrap another Cold War-era weapons treaty, China and Russia have sought to align their approach in the face of what they considered to be a destabilizing U.S. position.

"Issues of our cooperation and Chinese-Russian and Russian-Chinese coordination will surely be the focus of our attention," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency. "It is very productive work. In 2016, we approved the statement on strategic stability at the level of the leaders. It is just an example of how Russia and China are registering joint common positions more precisely."