 These plants were bought from U.S. vendors such as General Electric and Westinghouse with contractual work done by Japanese companies, who would later get a license themselves to build similar plant designs.Developments in nuclear power since that time have seen contributions from Japanese companies and research institutes on the same level as the other big users of nuclear power.From the early 1970s to the present, the Japanese government promoted the siting of nuclear power plants through a variety of policy instruments involving soft social control and financial incentives.