The UK and its allies must learn the lessons of Ukraine and supply defensive weapons to Taiwan, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.

She told MPs that Ukraine should have been given arms to resist Russia earlier and the same mistake should not be made in Taiwan.

There have been concerns within Government that failing to resist Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his neighbour could embolden Xi Jinping to try to occupy Taiwan.

Asked why some allies had not supported Ukraine in the same way as the UK, Ms Truss told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “There’s always a tendency, and we’ve seen this prior to the Ukraine war, there’s always a tendency of wishful thinking, to hope that more bad things won’t happen and to wait until it’s too late.

“We should have done things earlier, we should have been supplying the defensive weapons into Ukraine earlier.

“We need to learn that lesson for Taiwan.

“Every piece of equipment we have sent takes months of training, so the sooner we do it the better.”

Speaking to reporters on the plane to the Nato summit in Madrid, Boris Johnson said: “I just think it’s very important that countries around the world should not be able to read across from events in Europe and draw the conclusion that the world will simply stand idly by if boundaries are changed by force.

“That’s one of the most important lessons that we pick up from Ukraine.”