Rijndael, the Belgian cipher in question, famously won a very well-regarded cryptographic contest to obtain its role as AES. "Belgium" has nothing to do with it.
I know it was a Belgian cryptographer, not Belgium the state. I still think the country has makes a difference in how people regard an entry for the contest.
Of course, but do you think an algorithm from a state that most Americans see as "behind" or even a "terrorist state" has a perfectly equal chance of winning? The judges might even explicitly try to give each an equal chance but at least subconsciously, I would expect there to be some bias.
The submitters were not countries but (typically groups of) practitioners. Only one proposal was made by a group consisting entirely of Americans and it did not win. Like all such processes, I'm sure this particular one was imperfect and could be made better. You're making it sound like the judging of an Olympic Ice Dancing event, though, and I think all available evidence suggests that it wasn't.
