YARKAND, China — The winding, crowded lanes of old Yarkand, an ancient Silk Road town, preserve patterns of life that go back centuries.

On a recent morning, smoke wafted from sputtering grills of lamb and ovens lined with baking flatbread. Clangs rang from a coppersmith shaping bowls with a hammer. Twangs from a dutar, a two-stringed lute, floated from a store selling traditional musical instruments. In a dimly lit teahouse, old men in Muslim head caps murmured in conversation.

Sitting on the fringe of the Taklamakan Desert, Yarkand remains a cultural cradle for Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority in China’s far western Xinjiang region. But their way of life is under intense pressure.