British colonial power rested on actual territorial presence in the Orient

Evidence

The British writer on the Orient, and even more so the British colonial administrator, was dealing with territory about which there could be no doubt that English power was truly in the ascendant, even if the natives were on the face of it attracted to France and French modes of thought. So far as the actual space of the Orient was concerned, however, England was really there, France was not, except as a flighty temptress of the Oriental yokels. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 523

Categorization

• XREF: Builds the foundation for how material colonial domination underwrites the representational authority of Orientalist discourse; connects to later readings on how the imagined Orient is backed by real power.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 523