Colonial empires existed to contain the feared eruption of an organized Orient

Evidence

But if China organized itself (as it would), it would be no laughing matter. Europe’s effort therefore was to maintain itself as what Valéiy called “une machine puissante,” absorbing what it could from outside Europe, converting everything to its use, intellectually and materially, keeping the Orient selectively organized (or disorganized). Yet this could be done only through clarity of vision and analysis. Unless the Orient was seen for what it was, its power—military, material, spiritual—would sooner or later overwhelm Europe. The great colonial empires, great systems of systematic repression, existed to fend off the feared eventuality. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 647

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that knowledge of the Orient (‘seeing it for what it was’) was a precondition for containing it is the hinge of Said’s knowledge/power mechanism — connects to Foucault’s power-knowledge and to how Islamophobia fields claim ‘serious study’ of Islam as a security tool.
• DEFINE: The ‘machine puissante’ formulation names Orientalism’s productive function: not mere misrepresentation but active conversion of the Orient to European use.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 647