HONG KONG — A court in Shanghai released a Japanese commercial ship from impoundment in eastern China on Thursday, after the ship’s owner paid a civil compensation claim dating back to the wartime invasion that remains a source of bitterness in China.

The case has fanned contention about Chinese people’s legal claims for losses and suffering during Japan’s brutal occupation, which erupted into full-fledged war starting in 1937. The Shanghai maritime court ordered the seizing of the bulk carrier, the Baosteel Emotion, on Saturday after ruling that the owner, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, had failed to obey court orders to pay the claim for two leased vessels later lost in the chaos of war.

For some in China, the ruling to seize the ship, docked at a port in Zhejiang Province, signaled a breakthrough in hopes to use litigation to claim reparations for wartime suffering. The Japanese government said the decision shook the “foundations of our diplomatic normalcy with China,” but a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said the case had nothing to do with broader wartime compensation issues.

On Wednesday, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines paid, according to a report on an official website for Chinese court news, cutting short what could have become another point of dispute in already volatile relations.